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COMRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



OH, SHOOT! 

Confessions of Two Agitated Sportsmen 



Books by 
REX BEACH 

OH, SHOOT! 

TOO FAT TO FIGHT 

THE WINDS OF CHANCE 

LAUGHING BILL HYDE 

RAINBOWS END 

THE CRIMSON GARDENIA AND OTHER 

TALES OF ADVENTURE 
HEART OF THE SUNSET 
THE AUCTION BLOCK 
THE IRON TRAIL 
THE NET 

THE NE'ER-DO-WELL 
THE SPOILERS 
THE BARRIER 
THE SILVER HORDE 
GOING SOME 



HARPER & BROTHERS, NEW YORK 

[Established 1817] 



OH, SHOOT! 

Confessions of An 
Agitated Sportsman 



By 
REX BEACH 

Author of 

"The Spoilers" "The Barrier" 

"The Silver Horde" etc. 



With Illustrations from Photographs 
Taken by the Author 




HARPER y BROTHERS PUBLISHERS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 






Oh, Shoot t 

Copyrlshtf xoaxi by Harpw & Brethtn 
Printed in (hi Unitid Stem of Am«rie9 

FY 



SEP 16 1921 



g»CLA622816 



CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

I. Geese i 

II. The Chronicle of a Chromatic Bear Hunt . . 39 

III. The San Blas People 105 

IV. On the Trail of the Cowardly Cougar ... 141 

V. Messing Around in Mexico 216 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

We Met the Caravan Coming In ... . Frontispiece 

There Were Five of Us in the Party — Maxi- 
milian Foster and Grantland Rice, Fel- 
low Scribes, and Duke and Duchess, Two 
English Setters That We Took Along 
to Investigate the Quail Resources of 
the Country Facing p. 14 

This Boat Was Especially Built for Hunting 
in Shallow Waters, and While She Is 
Not Much to Look at. She Is Warm and 
Comfortable " 15 

Ri AND Nathan, Our Guides. Both Are Banks 
Men, Born and Raised Close to the Hat- 
teras Surf " 15 

We Managed to Collect a Fair Number of 

Birds '* 22 

The Harbor, Ocracoke, Pamlico Sound, 
Which Marks, Roughly, the Goose's 
Southern Limit *' 23 

Ocracoke, Center of the Goose-hunting In- 
dustry, Is a Quaint New England Vil- 
lage Pitched on the Outer Rim of Pam- 
lico Sound " 23 

Post Office, Ocracoke " 23 

Feeding the Live Decoys " 26 

Putting Down a Battery Rig " 27 

Railroad Construction, Copper River Rail- 
road " 42 

vii 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



FREIGHTtNG CONSTRUCTION SUPPLIES UP THE 

Copper River Facing 

Cordova, the Town Which Had Sprung Up 
AT THE Terminus of Mr. Heney's Rail- 
road. When Only Thirty Days Old It 
Had Twenty Saloons and a Sawmill . . 

Capture of Two Bear Cubs 

Two Black Bear Cubs 

We Had No Means of Measuring Our Prize, 
but the Carcass Was Tremendous . . 

The Distance from Fred Stone's Boot 
Tracks and His Spent Shells to the 
Carcass Was a Scant Twenty Feet 

We Loaded a Skiff upon One of Mr. Heney's 
Flat Cars and vSaw It Safely into the 
Muddy Waters of the Stream . . . 

Trout Fishing, Lake Eyak 

The Copper River Delta Is Full of Good 
Camping Places Like This 

We Were Scrupulously Neat in Our House- 
keeping 

Such a Pelt for Softness and Beauty I Have 
Seldom Seen 

Child's Glacier, a Towering Wall of Solid 
Ice . .- 

Abercrombie Canon, Copper River, Near 
the Glacier 

Lower End of Child's Glacier 

Ice Breaking Off Child's Glacier, Copper 
River, Alaska 

"Boiling the Kettle" 

"Bear" Brown and Skins from One Hunt , 

One of the Pictures Which the Doctor Had 
Clandestinely Secured During Official 

Visits 

viii 



p. 42 

43 
46 

46 

47 

47 

54 
55 

62 
63 
63 
70 

71 
78 

79 
86 

87 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

These Keys Were Like Clean, Orderly, Lit- 
tle Picnic Grounds Facing p. ii i 

Cardi, the "Place of Dead Bones," Is the 
Largest and Best Village at the West- 
ern End of the Archipelago .... " ii8 

A San Blas Village with Its Palm-thatched 

Houses AND Some OF Its Inhabitants , . " 119 

A Fresh Wind Was Blowing when the 
"Wisdom" Nosed Out Through the 
Breakwater and Headed Toward South 
America " 122 

Several Dugouts, Manned by Naked Boys, 

Circled Us at a Respectful Distance . " 122 

The Start of the Race " 123 

A San Blas Canoe " 123 

Rows of Naked Boys Perched Along the 

Rails Like Blackbirds " 126 

By This Time the Boys Had Adopted Us and 

Made Themselves Masters of the Ship " 127 

We Spent Much Time Ashore and Easily Es- 
tablished Friendly Relations with the 
Inhabitants '* 134 

A Primitive San Blas Cane Mill .... " 134 

Owing to Their Diminutive Size, It Is Diffi- 
cult TO Distinguish the Women from 
THE Girls Except BY Their Hair ... " 135 

The Crocodiles Are Incredibly Thick and 

Very Sizable " 138 

We Supplied the Village with Fish, Too, 
for the Streams Were Choked with 
Giant Snappers, Jewfish, and Tarpon . " 138 

We Put Full Trust in These Little Men 
Whom We Followed into Wildernesses 

and Swamps " 139 

ix 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

We Fished the Cardi River and We Hunted 

It Facing p. 139 

The Country North of the Canon Is Cov- 
ered BY A Magnificent Forest, and a 
Government Restriction Against Hunt- 
ing and Trapping Is More or Less Hon- 
ored in the Breach " 142 

Facing Us, from Twelve to Twenty Miles, 
Stood the North Wall, Our Destina- 
tion " 143 

We "Went Over the Rim" From Bass's 

Camp " 150 

We Boosted Fred Up to the Peak of the 

Rock, Where He Balanced Dizzily . " 151 

Looking Upriver from Opposite Side of Bass's 

Ferry " 151 

The Start. "Rarin' to Go" " 158 

That First Night We Camped Among Some 

Bowlders near a Spring " 159 

It Was Hot, and There Was Sand in the 

Butter " 159 

The Boys Set About Winding It Slowly 
Onward and Upward by Main Strength 
and Awkwardness " 166 

The Horse Kicked Himself Free of the Bars 

and Hanged Himself in Mid-air ... " 166 

With the Aid of Two Other Horses the 
Animal Was Dragged and Rolled up 
THE Bank to Safety " 167 

Uncle Jim Owen and Pot-hound, with Inset 
Picture of Pot-hound's Silver-mounted 
Collar " 174 

Fred and I Exchanged Apprehensive 
Glances. We Could Not Poison the 
Dog, for We Had Nothing with Us 
More Deadly than Epsom Salts ... " 175 

X 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Lioness Had Gone Over at a Favor- 
able Spot Facing p. 182 

Steep Going " 183 

Even as the Last Knot Was Drawn the 

Lioness Recovered " 202 

After a Couple of Hours the Younger Ones 
Gave Up, but Pot-hound Persevered in 
His Investigations " 203 

At Torres Our Train Took On Two Ar- 
mored Cars " 218 

In Guaymas One Got an Impressive Idea of 

Mexico's Present State " 219 

Nowhere Is There a More Desolate Coast 

THAN That of Lower California . . " 222 

Up the Coast We Hogged, Turning Hand- 
springs Around One Spouting Head- 
land after Another " 223 

When Our Boat Sailed, Her Tanks Were 
Full and Her Decks Crowded with 
Steel Drums " 230 

The Gulf Is, in Truth, a Gigantic Fish Trap ' ' 230 

Our First Camping Place " 231 

Queer Desert Trees " 238 

Lower California Desert, a Jungle of Queer 

Growths " 239 

Cave Dwellings, Lower California ... " 246 

We Hung Our Feet Over the Edge of the 
Cliffs and Let the View Soak in. Then 
Combed the Country with Our Glasses " 247 

Eddie Would Have Made a Fairly Convinc- 
ing Aborigine Had He Not Insisted upon 
Wearing His Red-flannel Undergar- 
ments „ " 254 

xi 



ng 


p. 


255 


i < 




255 


II 




262 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

The Deer Looked Small from the Top of 
THE Hnx, BUT After He Was Dressed 
He Was the Size of a Horse .... 

I Was Ready for a Bath when I Reached 
the Shore 

Types of Seri Indians 

The Seris Paddled Ashore to Prepare for 

Us " 263 

The Living Quarters of the Seris Were 
Nothing but Windbreaks, Small Brush 
Corrals, and There Was Nothing in the 
Village That Looked Like a Roof . . " 263 

All Smiles, Waiting to be Photographed . " 274 

These Seris Evidently Wanted to be Re- 
membered BY Us " 274 

It Was Queer to Find, So Near to Our Own 
Border, a People So Low Down the 
Scale of Progress '* 275 

A Group of Seri Indian Children .... " 275 



OH, SHOOT! 

Confessions of Two Agitated Sportsmen 



OH, SHOOT! 

Confessions of Two Agitated Sportsmen 



GEESE 

MOST men enjoy hunting, or would if 
they had a chance, but there is a small, 
abnormal minority who are hopeless addicts to 
the chase. To them the fiscal year begins 
with the opening of the deer season or the 
start of the duck flight, and ends when ''birds 
and quadrupeds may no longer be legally 
possessed." They are the fellows who wrap 
their own fish rods, join outing associations, 
and wear buckskin shirts when they disap- 
pear into the trackless wastes of Westchester 
County for the club's annual potlatch and 
big-game lying contests. 

To this class I belong. I offer what follows 
not as an excuse, but as a plea in extenuation. 
It is a feeble effort to paint the optimistic soul 



OH, SHOOT! 

of a sportsman, to show how impossible it is to 
prevent him from having a good time, no 
matter how his luck breaks, and, in a gen- 
eral way, to answer the question, "Why is a 
hunter?" 

There is no satisfactory answer to that 
query; hunters are merely born that way. 
Something in their blood manifests itself in 
regular accord with the signs of the zodiac. 
In my case, for instance, when autumn brings 
the open season, I suffer a complete and baf- 
fling change of disposition. I am no longer the 
splendid, upright citizen whose Christian vir- 
tues are a joy to his neighbors and an inspira- 
tion to the youth of his community. No. I 
grow furtive and restless ; honest toil irks me. 
I begin to chase sparrows and point meadow 
larks and bark at rabbit tracks. I fall ill 
and manifest alarming symptoms which de- 
mand change of climate and surcease from 
the grinding routine. I sigh and complain. I 
moan in my sleep and my appetite flags. I 
allow myself to be discovered dejectedly fond- 
ling a favorite fowling piece or staring, with 
the drooping eyes of a Saint Bernard, at some 
moth-eaten example of taxidermic atrocity. 
The only book that stirs my languid soul is 



GEESE 

that thrilling work, Syllabus of the Fish and 
Game Regulations. 

So adept have I become at simulating the 
signs of overwork that seldom am I denied a 
hunting trip to save my tottering health. 
Mind you, I do not advocate deceit. I abhor 
hypocrisy in the home, and I merely recount 
my own method of procedure for the benefit of 
such fellow huntsmen as are married and may 
be in need of first aid. 

I was suffering the ravages of suppressed 
desires, common to my kind, when, several 
autumns ago, a friend told me about a form of 
wild-goose shooting in vogue on the outer 
shoals of Pamlico Sound, North Carolina, and 
utterly stampeded my processes of orderly 
thought. 

"They use rolling blinds on the sand bars," 
he told me. "They put down live decoys, a 
couple hundred yards away, then, when the 
geese come in, they roll the blind up to them." 

I assured him that his story was interesting 
but absurd. Having hunted Canada honkers, 
I knew them to be suspicious birds, skeptical 
of the plainest circumstantial evidence and 
possessed of all the distrust of an income-tax 
examiner. 

3 



OH, SHOOT! 

"You don't move while they're looking," 
my informant told me. "When they rubber, 
you hold your breath and, if religiously in- 
clined, you pray. When they lower their 
heads, you push the blind forward. A goose 
is a poor judge of distance, and you can roll 
right up to him if you know how." 

I didn't believe him; but the next day I was 
en route to North Carolina, and I have been 
back there every year since. I have shot 
from rolling blinds, stake blinds, and bat- 
teries. Sometimes I have good luck, again I 
do not. But nothing destroys my enjoyment, 
and every trip is a success. Once I am away 
with a gun on my arm, I become a nomad, a 
Si wash; I return home only when my sense 
of guilt becomes unbearable and when ^the 
warmth of my wife's letters approaches zero. 

And I have done well down there. At first, 
I went alone, traveled light, and spent little 
money. Now I take friends with me; I keep 
a well-equipped hunting boat there the year 
round; I stay a long time, and I spend sums 
vastly larger than I can afford. A brace of 
ducks used to cost me perhaps ten dollars, in 
the raw; now they stand me several times 
that, exclusive of general overhead. It shows 

4 



GEESE 

what any persistent sportsman may accom- 
plish even with a poor start. Perhaps no 
habitual hunter pays more for his entertain- 
ment than I do, and, figuring losses in business, 
time wasted, etc., etc., I truthfully can say 
that I enjoy the sport of kings. 

This year there were five of us in the party — 
Maximilian Foster and Grantland Rice, fellow 
scribes, and Duke and Duchess, two English 
setters of breeding that we took along to 
investigate the quail resources of the country. 

Max had made the trip once before; so he 
needed no urging to go again — 'Only an excuse. 
We hit upon a good one. He is an abandoned 
trout fisherman and he ties his own flies. 
Feathers are expensive and hard to get. Why 
not lay in a good supply? It was the best we 
could think of at short notice; so he went 
home to try it out. 

There was every reason why Grant should 
remain at his desk, but we argued that there 
might well be problems of trajectory involved 
in goose shooting which would revolutionize 
the golf industry if thoughtfully studied. Who 
could better investigate this promising field 
than a recognized golf paranoiac like him? We 
had only to suggest this line of thought ; Grant 

5 



OH, SHOOT I 

rose hungrily to the bait and darted with It 
into the uptown Subway. He argued where 
it would do the most good, and to such effect 
that he promised to follow us a week later. 

Now, a word about Duke and Duchess. In 
my time I have owned many dogs, for a dog 
is something I lack the force of character to 
refuse. Anybody can give me any kind of dog 
at any time, and I am grateful — to the point of 
tears. That is how these two came to our 
house — as gift dogs — and they made me very 
happy for a while, because I had always 
wanted a pair of setters. Frankly, however, 
they abused their welcome, for there has sel- 
dom been merely a pair of them. I have pre- 
sented setter puppies to my relatives and to 
my friends. I am now preparing a gift list of 
my business acquaintances and fellow club 
members, but I am slowly losing ground, and 
my place grows more and more to resemble a 
Bide-a-Wee Home. 

I had never been able to hunt over this pair, 
for whenever I was ready for a trip, household 
duties prevented Duchess from going along, or 
else I foresaw the necessity of taking with me 
a large crate in which to ship back her excess 
profits. This time, however, conditions ap- 

6 



GEESE 

peared to be propitious, so Max and I decided 
to do upland shooting while waiting for Grant 
to join us, and then wind up our hunt with a 
gigantic offensive against the ducks and geese. 
After watching Duke and Duchess point some 
of my pigeons and retrieve corncobs, Max and 
I decided they were natural game sleuths and 
could detect a bird in almost any disguise. 
If a quail hoped to escape them, it would have 
to wear hip boots and a beard. 

Time was, not long ago, when travel was no 
great hardship. But all that is changed. 
Government operation of the railroads worked 
wonders, even during the brief time we 
had it. For instance, it restored all the 
thrill and suspense, all the old exciting un- 
certainty of travel during the Civil War wood- 
burning days. No longer does one encounter 
on the part of employees that un-American 
servility which made travel so popular with 
the parasitic rich. Real democracy prevails; 
train crews are rough, gruff, and unmannerly, 
and even the lowly porter has learned the sov- 
ereign dignity of labor— and maintains it. Nor 
is there now any difference in the accommoda- 
tions on the jerkwater feeders and the main 
lines, all that having yielded to the glorious 

7 



OH, SHOOT! 

leveling process. Train schedtiles are ingen- 
iously arranged for the benefit of innkeepers at 
junction points, and the last named are main- 
tained for the purpose of allowing one train 
to escape before another can interfere with it. 

Having missed connections wherever prac- 
tical, and taken the dogs out for a walk in 
several towns of which we had never heard, 
Max and I arrived, in due course, at Beaufort, 
only twelve hours late. We were a bit weak 
from hunger and considerably bruised from 
futile attempts to battle our way into the 
dining car, but otherwise we were little the 
worse for the journey. 

The guides were waiting with the boat, but 
they bore bad news. 

"There's plenty of geese on the banks," Ri 
told us, "but we've had summer weather and 
the tides are so low there's no shooting." 

Seldom does a hunter make a long trip and 
encounter weather or game conditions that 
are anything except unparalleled. I have 
learned long since to anticipate the announce- 
ment that all would have been well had I 
arrived three weeks earlier or had I postponed 
my coming for a similar length of time ; there- 
fore we ignored Ri's evil tidings, pointed to 

8 



GEESE 

Duke and Duchess, and forecast a bad week 
for any quail that were unwise enough to 
remain in the county. 

Both Ri and Nathan are banks men, born 
and raised close to the Hatteras surf; they 
know nothing of quail hunting, so we blue- 
printed it for them on the way to the dock. 

"High-schooled dogs like these are almost 
himian," we explained. "They are trained to 
pay no attention to anything except game 
birds, but, with respect to them, their intelli- 
gence is uncanny, their instinct imerring. 
They will quarter a field on the run, pick up 
the scent of a covey, wheel and work up wind 
to a point. When they come to a stand, you 
know youVe got quail. You walk up, give 
them the word to flush ; then they retrieve the 
dead birds and lay them at your feet without 
marring a feather. It's beautiful work.'* 

While we were in the midst of this tribute, 
Duke, whose leash I had removed, squeezed 
out through the picket fence of a back yard 
with the palpitating remains of a white pullet 
in his mouth. He was proud; he was atrem- 
ble with the ardor of the chase; the irate 
owner of the deceased fowl was at his heels, 
brandishing a hoe. 



OH, SHOOT' 

I settled with the outraged citizen; then I 
engaged Duke in a tug of war for the corpus 
delicti. It was a strictly fresh pullet; there 
was nothing cold storage about it, for it 
stretched. Meanwhile, Max explained how 
to break a dog of chicken-stealing. 

"Tie the dead bird round his neck where he 
can't get at it. That will cure him." 

" But why cure him?" Ri inquired, earnestly. 
"Seems like you'd ought to encourage a habit 
of that kind. Them dogs is worth money!'* 

Duke and Duchess were much interested in 
the boat. While we unpacked, they explored 
it from end to end; then Duchess went out on 
deck, tried to point a school of mullet, and 
fell overboard. Nathan retrieved her with a 
boat hook; she came streaming into the 
cabin, shook herself thoroughly over my open 
steamer trunk, then, unobserved, climbed into 
my berth and pulled the covers up around 
her chin. She has a long, silky, expensive 
coat, and it dries slowly; but she liked my 
bed and spent most of a restless night trying 
to blot herself upon my chest. 

I did not sleep well. No one can enjoy 
imbroken repose so long as a wet dog insists 
upon sleeping inside the bosom of his pajamas. 

lO 



GEESE 

I arose at dawn with a hollow cough and all 
the premonitory symptoms of pneumonia, but 
Duchess appeared to be none the worse for her 
wetting, and we felt a great relief. It would 
have been a sad interruption to our outing 
had either dog fallen ill. 

That day, while the boat was being out- 
fitted. Max and I hired an automobile and 
went out to start a rolling barrage against the 
quail. The dogs were shivering with excite- 
ment when we put them into the first field, 
but they had nothing on us, for few thrills 
exceed that of the hunter who, after a year 
indoors, slips a pair of shells into his gun and 
says, "Let's go." 

But within a half hour we knew we had 
pulled a flivver. Out of the entire state of 
North Carolina we had selected the one sec- 
tion where big, inch-long cockleburs were too 
thick for dogs to work. Nothing less than a 
patent-leather dachshund could have lived in 
those fields. In no time Duke and Duchess 
were burred up so solidly they could hardly 
move. They were bleeding; their spun-silk 
coats were matted and rolled until their skins 
were as tight as drum heads ; their plumy tails 
were like baseball bats, and they weighed so 

2 II 



OH, SHOOT! 

much that their knees buckled and they 
looked as if they were about to jump. 

They put up a covey or two, but it became 
a question either of removing their coats in 
solid blankets, as a whale is stripped of its 
blubber, or of patiently freeing them, one burr 
at a time — an all-day task — so we went back 
to the car and sought a snipe marsh. 

Snipe marshes are wet, and the mud is 
usually deep, dark, and sticky. One either 
stands or sits in it, and to get the fullest enjoy- 
ment from the sport one should forget his 
rubber boots. This we had done; hence we 
were pretty squashy when we got back into 
the automobile about dark. We slowly froze 
on the way to town, but before we had hoarsed 
up too badly to speak, we agreed that it had 
been a great day. 

I picked burrs most of that night. Along 
toward morning, however, I realized that it 
was a hopeless task. I had hair all over the 
cabin; my fingers were bleeding, Duke and 
Duchess were upon the verge of hysteria, and 
whenever we looked at each other we showed 
our teeth and growled. So I decided to clip 
them. But it is no part of a vacation to shear 
a pair of fretful canines, size six and seven- 

12 



GEESE 

eighths, with a pair of dull manicure scissors. 
Breakfast found those dogs looking as if they 
had on tights. I was haggard, but grimly 
determined to enjoy another day in the glori- 
ous open if only I could stay awake. 

It was no use trying to hunt here, however; 
so I gave the word to up anchor and hie 
away out of the cocklebur belt. 

So far as I can discover, a boat owner has 
one privilege, expensive but gratifying; he 
can, when the spirit moves him, say, "Let us 
go away from here," and sometimes the boat 
goes. I voiced that lordly order, ran Duchess 
out of my bed, and lay down for a nap. But 
not to sleep. Ri and Nathan began an intri- 
cate and noisy job of steam fitting in the en- 
gine room. Now and then the motor joined 
them, only to miss, cough, and die in their 
arms. By and by I heard echoes of profanity; 
so I arose to investigate the nature of the 
difficulty. 

Max was frowning at the engine; Ri was 
massaging its forehead with a handful of 
waste; Nathan was spasmodically wrenching 
hisses out of it with the starting bar. He 
raised a streaming face to say: 

"She never balked on us before,** 
13 



OH, SHOOT! 

Ri agreed: 

"She never missed an explosion coming 
over." 

"Sure youVe got gas?" I hopefully in- 
quired. This is my first question in cases of 
engine trouble. 

They were sure; so I returned to my bunk 
and ran Duchess out of my warm place. Had 
they answered my inquiry in the negative, I 
could have instantly diagnosed the case, but 
when an engine has gasoline and still refuses 
to run, I delve no deeper. I respect its wishes. 

Another half hour passed; then I went for- 
ward and asked if there was plenty of spark. 
This is my second question, and it leaves me 
clean. But there was spark enough, so I 
effaced myself once for all and again disturbed 
Duchess just as she had made an igloo of my 
bedclothes. This time I dozed off, lulled by 
sounds which indicated that Nathan haa 
begun a major operation of some sort, with 
the others passing instruments and counting 
sponges. 

Running footsteps roused me. Max was 
removing a fire extinguisher from its rack 
when I opened my eyes. He was calm; noth- 
ing to worry about except a small conflagra- 

14 




-.-«« 




GRANTLAND RICE MAXIMILIAN FOSTER 

There were five of us in the party — Maximihan Foster and Grantland Rice, fellow 

scribes, and Duke and Duchess, two English setters that we took along to investigate 

the quail resources of the country 




THIS BOAT WAS ESPECIALLY BUILT FOR HUNTING IN SHALLOW WATERS, AND 
WHILE SHE IS NOT MUCH TO LOOK AT, SHE IS WARM AND COMFORTABLE 




RI AND NATHAN, OUR GUIDES. BOTH ARE BANKS MEN, BORN AND RAISED 
CLOSE TO THE HATTERAS SURF 



GEESE 

tion under the engine-room floor. If we 
worked fast, we might save a part of the 
ship, and wasn't it fortunate that we were 
still tied up to the dock? 

Contrary to expectations, we managed to 
put out the blaze, after which we found that 
all our motor needed was a cozy little fire in 
its Hving room to take the chill out of the air, 
for when we turned it over it went to work 
in the most cheerful spirit. 

That afternoon we hunted farther up the 
sound, but what quail we raised were in im- 
possible thickets and the snipe on the marshes 
had gone visiting over the week end. As we 
pulled out at daybreak on the following 
morning, we ran aground on a falling tide and 
stuck there. 

Some trips seem to have a jinx on them. 
John W. Jonah appears to keep step right up 
to the finish. After laboring long and blas- 
phemously in a vain effort to get afloat, the 
unwelcome suspicion entered our minds that 
this was such a one. 

I had built this boat especially for hunting 
in these shallow waters, and while she is not 
much to look at, she is warm and comfortable, 
and it is Ri's boast that she is the only fifty- 

15 



OH, SHOOT! 

foot craft in existence that can navigate on a 
heavy frost or a light dew. But that is an 
exaggeration, as we discovered when, finally, 
we were forced to go overboard, regardless of 
the weather, and boost her off by main 
strength. Then we learned that she had been 
cunningly designed to draw just enough water 
so as to thoroughly wet us, regardless of the 
height of our waders. But the experience 
benefited our colds; it did them a world of 
good and practically renewed their youth. 

Max and I tested out the game resources of 
several sections of that shore on the way to 
Ocracoke, but instead of shipping quail home 
to our expectant friends, we had hard work to 
get enough to keep body and soul together, 
and those few, of course, we could neither 
taste nor smell — our colds were doing so well. 
Always there was some good reason why we 
had shot nothing to-day but had high hopes 
for the morrow; Duke and Duchess began to 
regard the whole expedition as a hoax on them, 
and spent their time collecting ticks for me to 
remove during the evening. Nevertheless, 
the open life was having its effect upon Max 
and me. We had arrived soft, pallid, gas- 
bleached, our bones afflicted with city-bred 

i6 



GEESE 

aches and pains; after a week spent on waist- 
deep sand bars, in damp marshes and draughty 
fields, we were practically bedridden. 

Ocracoke, center of the goose-hunting in- 
dustry, is a quaint New England village 
pitched on the outer rim of Pamlico Sound, 
and it hovers around a tiny circular lagoon. 
The houses are scattered among wind-twisted 
cedars or thickets of juniper and sedge, and 
most of them possess two outstanding ad- 
juncts — a private graveyard and a decoy pen. 
All male inhabitants above the a,ge of nine are 
experts on internal-combustion engines, for 
motor boats are everywhere except in the back 
yards. Of distinctive landmarks there are 
four — one lighthouse, one colored man, and 
two Methodist churches. Ocracoke has tried 
other negroes, but likes this one, and as for 
religion, it will probably build another Metho- 
dist church when prices get back to normal. 

Now, for. the benefit of any reader genuinely 
in quest of information, a word as to the kind 
of hunting here in vogue and the methods 
involved. First, understand that this stormy 
Hatteras region is the Palm Beach of the 
Canada goose and his little cousin the brant. 
Ducks winter all along the Atlantic coast, but 

17 



OH, SHOOT! 

Pamlico Sound marks, roughly, the goose's 
southern limit. Here each wary old gander 
pilots his family; here he and his mate watch 
their young folks make social engagements 
for the following season. 

There is no marsh or pond shooting, for 
the wild fowl frequent the shallow waters of 
the sound and it is necessary to hunt from 
rolling blinds, stake blinds, or batteries. The 
rolling blind I have described — ^it is used only 
on cold, drizzly days in the late season when 
the geese have chilblains and gather on the 
dry bars to compare frost bites. A stake 
blind resembles a pulpit raised upon four 
posts, and is useful mainly in decoying inex- 
perienced Northern hunters. Green sports- 
men stool well to stake blinds, for they are 
comfortable, but a wise gunner shies at them 
as does a gander. He knows that the real 
thing is a battery. 

This latter device may be described as a sort 
of coffin, but lacking in the creature comforts of 
a casket. It is a narrow, water-tight box with 
a flush deck about two feet wide, to three 
sides of which are hinged large folding wings of 
cloth or sacking stretched upon a light wooden 
framework. It is painted an inconspicuous 

i8 



GEESE 

color; heavy weights sink it so low that its 
decks are awash. The sportsman lies at full 
length in it, and his body is thus really be- 
neath the level of the water. When it is sur- 
rounded by a couple hundred dancing decoys, 
the hunter is effectually hidden from all but 
high-flying birds. To such as fly low, the rig 
is a snare and a delusion ; not unless they flare 
high enough to get a duck's-eye view do they 
see the ace-in-the-hole, and then it is usually 
too late. 

Battery shooting requires some little prac- 
tice and experience. One must begin by 
learning to endure patiently the sensations of 
ossification, for to rest one's aching frame even 
briefly by sitting up, or to so much as raise 
one's head for a good look about, is a high 
crime and a misdemeanor. It completely 
ruins the whole day for the guides, who are 
comfortably anchored off to leeward in the 
tender, and affords them the opportunity of 
saying, later: 

"You can't expect 'em to decoy to a lump. 
If you'd of kep* down, you'd of got fifty birds 
to-day." 

And that is not the only discomfort. All 
batteries are too small, and some of them leak 

19 



OH, SHOOT! 

in the small of the back. If the wind shifts or 
blows up, they sink before the guides arrive. 
For years I tried to adapt myself to the exist- 
ing models, but failed. I fasted until my hips 
narrowed to an AA last; I wore the hair off 
the top of my head; my body became rect- 
angular, and still I did not fit. I have had 
rubber-booted guides stand upon my abdomen 
and stamp me into my mold, as the barefoot 
maidens of Italy tread the autumn vintage, 
but, no matter how well they wedged me in, 
some part of me, sooner or later, slipped. 
The damp salt air swelled me, perhaps ; any- 
how, I bulged until from a distance I looked 
like a dead porpoise, and the ducks avoided 
me. 

Tiring of this, I had a large box built. I 
equipped it with a rubber mattress and pillow, 
and now I shoot in Oriental luxury. But, 
even under favorable conditions, to correctly 
time incoming birds, to rise up and "meet 
them" at precisely the right instant, is a mat- 
ter of considerable nicety. One must shoot 
sitting, which is a trick in itself, especially 
on the back hand, and ducks do not remain 
stationary when surprised by the apparition 
of a magnified jack-in-the-box. They are 

20 



GEESE 

reputed to travel at ninety miles an hour, 
when hitting on all four, but that is too con- 
servative. Start the goose flesh on a teal's 
neck, for instance, and he will leave your 
vicinity so fast that a load of shot needs short 
pants and running shoes to overtake him. 

I have lain in a double box alongside of 
experienced field shots and picked up many 
valuable additions to my vocabulary of epi- 
thets. I have seen nice, well-bred, Christian 
gentlemen grind their teeth, throw their shells 
overboard, and send for better loads, even 
smash their guns in profane and impotent 
rage. That is, I have seen them perform 
thus when I myself was not stone blind with 
fury. 

We shot for a couple of days, off Ocracoke, 
while we were waiting for Grant, but the 
weather was warm and we had little luck; 
then the bottom fell out of the glass and, in 
high hopes of a norther, we ran up the banks 
to our favorite hunting grounds. As we 
pulled into our anchorage, the bars were black 
with wild fowl; through our field glasses we 
could see thousands, tens of thousands, of 
resting geese; up toward Hatteras Inlet the 
sky was smudged with smoky streamers which 

21 



OH, SHOOT! 

we knew to be wheeling clouds of redheads. 
Before we had been at rest a half hour, the 
wind hauled and came whooping out of the 
north, bearing a cold, driving rain; so we 
shook hands all around. All that is necessary 
for good shooting on Pamlico is bad weather. 
It looked as if we had buried our jinx once 
for all. 

Our party had grown, for we had picked 
up the hunting rigs at Ocracoke — they were 
moored astern of us, launches, battery boats, 
and decoy skiffs streaming out like the tail of 
a comet. All that day and the next we 
watched low-flying strings of geese and ragged 
flocks of ducks beating past us, while we told 
stories or conducted simple experiments in 
probability and chance. In the latter I was 
unsuccessful, as usual, for I simply cannot 
become accustomed to the high cost of two 
small pair. 

The second morning brought a slight better- 
ment of conditions; so we set out early. Max 
in search of shelter behind a marshy islet, 
while I hit for the outer reefs. After several 
attempts, Ri finally found a spot where a 
mile of shoals had flattened the sea sufficiently 
to promise some hope of "getting down." 

22 




THE HARBOR, OCRACOKE, PAMLICO SOUND^ WHICH MARKS, ROUGHLY, 
THE goose's southern LIMIT 




OCRACOKE, CENTER OF THE GOOSE-HUNTING INDUSTRY, IS A QUAINT 
NEW ENGLAND VILLAGE PITCHED ON THE OUTER RIM OF PAMLICO SOUND 




POST OFFICE, OCRACOKE 



GEESE 

While we were placing the battery, Grant- 
land Rice arrived in a small boat from Ocra- 
coke. He was drenched; he had been four 
days en route from New York, and he was 
about fed up on rough travel. Through 
ntmib, blue lips he chattered, "You're harder 
to find than Stanley." 

I directed him to the houseboat and told 
him where to obtain comfort and warmth — 
third bureau drawer, left-hand corner, but 
be sure to cork it up when through — then 
explained that Max had put down a double 
box and was waiting for him. 

"The weather to kill geese is weather to 
kill men," I assured him. "You're in luck to 
arrive during a norther like this." 

"Any nursing facilities aboard the boat?" 
Grant wanted to know. 

I assured him with pride that we were 
equipped to take care of almost anything up 
to double pneumonia, and that if worse came 
to worst and his lungs filled up, we could run 
him over to the mainland, where he could 
probably get in touch with a hospital by mail. 

My battery managed to live, with the lead 
wash strips turned up, but the gale drove foam 
and spray over me in such quantities that I 

23 



OH, SHOOT! 

was soon numb and wet — the normal state for 
a battery hunter. Members of the Greely 
expedition doubtless suffered some discom- 
forts, and the retreat from Serbia must have 
been trying, but for loo-per-cent-perfect ex- 
posure give me a battery in stormy winter 
weather. 

However, I managed to collect a fair number 
of birds before dusk, when, in answer to my 
feeble signals, the guides rescued me. They 
seized me by my brittle ears, raised me stiffly 
to my heels, then slid me, head first, into the 
tiny cabin of the launch, as stokers shove cord- 
wood into a boiler. By the time we got back 
to the boat I could bend my larger joints 
slightly and I no longer gave off a metallic 
sound when things fell on me. 

The other boys had not fared so well. They 
had been drowned out, their battery had been 
sunk without trace, and they had nothing to 
show for their day's sport except a clothes line 
full of steaming garments and a nice pair of 
congestive chills. Otherwise it had been a 
great day, and we looked forward to more fun 
on the morrow. 

But how vain our hopes! As usual, the 
weather was unparalleled. Once again it 

34 



GEESE 

surprised the oldest inhabitants. That night 
the wind whipped into the south, drove all the 
water off the bars, then fell away to a calm, 
and the temperature became oppressive. The 
wild fowl reassembled in great rafts where we 
could not get at them; we lay in our batteries, 
panting like lizards and moaning for iced lem- 
onade, while the skin on our noses curled up 
like dried paint. The only birds we got were 
poor half-witted things, delirious with the heat. 

Such conditions could not last — the guides 
assured us of that — and they didn't. The 
next day it rained, and a battery in rainy 
weather is about as dry as a goldfish globe. 
Now, a strong man with an iron will may 
school himself to lie motionless while he slowly 
perishes from cold, for after the first few 
agonizing hours there is comparatively little 
discomfort to death by freezing, but I defy 
anybody to drown without a struggle. 

But why drag out the painful details? We 
had not interred our jinx. One day a hurri- 
cane blew out of the north and piled the angry 
waters in upon us, the next it shifted, ran the 
tides out, and left us as dry as a lime burner's 
boot; the third it rained or fogged or turned 
glassy calm. Grizzled old veterans from the 

H 



OH, SHOOT! 

Hatteras Life-saving Station rowed out to 
tell us that such weather was impossible 
and threatened to ruin their business, but 
what could you expect under a Democratic 
administration? 

One morning, Ri outlined a desperate plan 
to me, and I leaped at it. Away inshore, 
across miles of flats, we could see probably a 
million geese and twice that many ducks 
enjoying a shallow footbath where no boat 
could approach them. 

"Let's leave the launch outside, wade our 
rig up to their feedin' ground, and dig it in. 
It '11 take a half day of hard work, but there's 
goin' to be a loose goose flyin' about three 
o'clock, and you can shoot till plumb dark. 
We'll leave the box down and wade back." 

It sounded difficult, so we tried it, towing 
the empty battery behind us. The big decoy 
skiff dragged like an alligator, but we poled, 
waded, shoved, and tugged until we came to 
where the bottom was pitted and white with 
up torn grass roots. Here we dug a hole deep 
enough to sink the box — no easy job with a 
broken-handled shovel — put out our stools, 
and then the men shoved the empty boat away. 

Tons of wild fowl had gone out as we came 
26 



GEESE 

in, but soon after I lay down they began 
returning. First there came a pair of sprigs, 
then a pair of black ducks. The black mal- 
lard is my favorite — he is so wary, so wise, and 
so game. He can look into the neck of a jug, 
and he fights to the last. When the hen 
dropped, the drake, as usual, flared vertically. 
Upward he leaped in that exhibition of furious 
aerial gymnastics peculiar to his breed; then, 
at the top of his climb, he seemed to hang 
motionless for the briefest interval. That is 
the psychological instant at which to nail a 
black duck. As he came down, fighting, I 
was up and overboard after him. The water 
was shallow, but I splashed like a stern- 
wheeler, and I was wet to the waist before I 
had retrieved that cripple. 

Next I glimpsed a long, low line of waving 
wings approaching, and flattened myself to the 
thickness of a flannel cake, thrilling in every 
nerve. Never did twenty geese head in more 
prettily. They had started to set their pin- 
ions, and I was picking my shots, when one of 
the decoys, a young gander in the Boy Scout 
class, cracked under the nervous strain and 
began to flap madly. He flared the incomers^ 
and I failed to get more than two. 

3 27 



OH, SHOOT! 

I made haste to gather up the dead birds 
and lay them on the battery wings; then I 
moved the shell-shocked gander to the head 
of the rig. But before I could get him 
anchored, distant honks warned me, and I 
ran for cover. Of course, I tripped over 
decoy lines — everybody does. I did Miss 
Kellerman's famous standing, sitting, stand- 
ing dive, but there was still a dry spot between 
my shoulder blades when I plunged kicking 
into the battery. I was too late, however, and 
the flock went by, out of range, laughing up- 
roariously at me. 

Then up from the south came a rain squall, 
and I stood with my back to it, shivering and 
talking loudly as tiny glacial streams explored 
parts of my body that are not accustomed to 
water. During the rest of the afternoon, 
cloudbursts followed one another with such 
regularity that my battery resembled a horse 
trough, and when I immersed myself in it it 
overflowed. But between squalls the birds 
flew. When a bunch of geese pitched in at 
my head and I downed five, I fell in love with 
the spot and would have resisted a writ of 
eviction. 

When the guides appeared at dark I had a 
28 



GEESE 

pile of game that all but filled the tiny skiff 
which they had thoughtfully brought along. 
By the time we had loaded it with the dead 
birds and the crate of live decoys it was gun- 
wale deep, so we set out to wade back to the 
launch, towing it behind us. 

Night had fallen; fog and rain occasionally 
obsctired the gleam of our distant ship's lan- 
tern. Other lights winked at us out of the 
gloom, and although they were miles away, 
nevertheless they all looked alike; so, natu- 
rally, we got lost. We headed for first one 
then another twinkling beacon, and altered 
our course only when the water deepened so 
that we could proceed no farther without 
swimming. 

I have been successfully lost where you 
would least expect it, but never before had I 
been lost at sea with nothing whatever to sit 
down upon except the ocean, and after an 
hour or two I voted it the last word in nothing 
to do. I can think of no poorer way of spend- 
ing a rainy December night than chasing will- 
o'-the-wisps round a knee-deep mud flat the 
size of Texas, with an open channel between 
you and the shore. 

I presume we waded no more than twenty- 
29 



OH, SHOOT! 

five miles — although It seemed much farther 
— before we found the launch and collapsed 
over her gunwale like three wet shirts. Then, 
just to show that things are never as bad as 
possible, the engine balked. 

I asked if there was plenty of gas and if the 
spark was working, and, receiving the usual 
affirmative answer, I dissolved completely 
into my rubber boots. Ri was probably quite 
as miserable as I, but he began to scrub up for 
the customary operation. He removed the 
motor's appendix, or its Fay and Bowen, 
and ran a straw through it, the while we 
could see frantic flashes of the houseboat's 
headlight. 

I felt an aching pity for Max and Grant. 
What a shock to them it would be to find us 
in the morning, frozen over the disemboweled 
remains of our engine, like merrymakers 
stricken at a feast of toadstools. They were 
men of fine fecHngs; it would nearly, if not 
quite, spoil their whole trip, even though they 
divided my dead birds between them. 

But the machine made a miraculous re- 
covery, and at its first encouraging "put" a 
great warmth of satisfaction stole through me. 
After all, it had been a wonderful day. 

30 



GEESE 

Human endurance, however, could not out- 
game that weather. The evening finally 
came when the boys announced that their 
time was up, so, after supper, we sent the 
small boats up to Ocracoke on the inside and 
fared forth into the dark sound. 

As we blindly felt our way out from our 
anchorage, we ran over a stake net, picked it 
up and wrapped it around our propeller, and 
grounded helplessly on the edge of the outer 
bar. There we stuck. Examination showed 
a very pretty state of affairs. The net with 
its hard cotton lead line had wedged in be- 
tween the propeller and the hull, and discon- 
nected the shaft — a trifling damage and one 
that could have been repaired easily enough 
had we possessed a deep-sea diving outfit or 
a floating dry dock. But, search our baggage 
as we might, we could find neither. That's 
the trouble about leaving home in a hurry, 
one is apt to forget his dry dock. 

Just to show us that he was still on the job, 
old J. W. Jinx arranged a shift in the wind. 
It had been calm all day ; now a gale came off 
the sound and held us firmly on the reef. 
Pamlico began to show her teeth in the 
gloom, and with every swell we worked higher 

31 



OH, SHOOT! 

up on the bar and the boat bumped until our 
teeth rattled. We were several miles offshore, 
without any sort of skiff; it began to look as 
if we had about run out of luck and might 
have to hunt standing room somewhere in the 
surf. However, a yacht had made in near by 
on the day before, and, thanks to our search- 
light, we managed to get a rise out of her. 
She sent a launch off, and it finally towed us 
back to shelter. 

By this time it was midnight and the duties 
of host rested heavily upon me. I could with 
difficulty meet the accusing eyes of my guests, 
and, although I had exhausted my conversa- 
tional powers, I hung close to them for fear of 
the cutting, unkind things they would say if 
I left them alone. 

The next morning, Mr. Scott, owner of the 
neighboring yacht, prompted by true sports- 
man's courtesy, towed us back to Ocracoke, 
and as we went plunging down the sound in a 
cloud of spray we realized that the weather 
had hardened up and the birds were beginning 
to fly. The sky was full of them; we could 
hear the noise of many guns — a sound that 
brought scalding tears to our eyes. 

I simply could not bear to leave just as the 
32 



GEESE 

show had begun; so I reread my wife's last 
letter, and, finding it only moderately cool, I 
took the bit in my teeth and declared it my 
intention to stick long enough to change de- 
feat into victory, even if I had to sleep in the 
woodshed when I got home. 

"Better stay on for a few days," I urged the 
boys. "It will be dangerous to sit up in a 
battery to-morrow; the birds will knock your 
hats off. A blind man could kill his limit in 
this weather." 

I had not read their mail, but I understood 
when they choked up and spoke tearfully 
about "business." While I pitied them sin- 
cerely, a fierce joy surged through my own 
veins; nothing now could hinder me from 
enjoying a few days of fast, furious shooting. 
The birds were pouring out of Currituck; 
there would be redheads, canvasbacks, teal — 
every kind of duck. 

As we tried to work the house boat into the 
lagoon at Ocracoke, where we could get her 
out on the ways and count the fish remaining 
in that fragment of net, an Arctic tornado hit 
us and blew us up high and dry on a rock pile. 
It was a frightful position we now found our- 
selves in, for we had such a list to port that the 

33 



OH, SHOOT! 

chips rolled off the table — and we all felt 
lucky. 

But the storm had delayed the mail boat 
and my companions were forced to remain 
over another day. The courage with which 
they bore this bitter disappointment was sub- 
lime ; they sang like a pair of thrushes as they 
feverishly unpacked. 

Conditions were ideal the next morning 
and we were away early. Having put down 
my rig in shallow water, where I could wade 
up my own birds, I sent the launch back to 
the village. This promised to be a day of 
days, and I wanted to get the most out of it. 

Almost immediately the ducks began flying, 
and several bunches headed in towards me. 
I was puzzled as to why they changed their 
minds and flared, until a cautious peep over 
the side showed a small power-boat threshing 
up against the wind. It had already cost me 
several good shots, but there was nothing to do 
except wait patiently for it to pass. How- 
ever, it did not pass; in spite of my angry 
shouts and gesticulations it held its course 
until within hailing distance. Then the man 
in the stern bellowed : 

"Telegram!" 

34 



GEESE 

Now, mail is bad enough on a hunting 
trip, but telegrams are unbearable, and I 
distrust them. Nobody ever wanted me to 
stay away and enjoy myself so urgently as to 
wire me; therefore I openly resented this 
man and his mission. By the time he had 
handed me the message I had made up my 
mind to ignore it, reasoning rapidly that it 
could by no possibility be of importance, and 
if it were — as it probably was — I could do 
nothing about it before the mail boat came 
that night. Hence it was futile to permit 
my attention to be distracted from the im- 
portant business of the moment. 

I thanked the man, then urged him, for 
Heaven's sake, to beat it quickly, for, in the 
offing, flocks of geese were noisily demanding 
a chance to sit down with my decoys, and just 
out of range ducks were flying about, first on 
one wing then on the other, waiting for him 
to be gone. 

But that telegram exercised an uncanny 
fascination for me. I lacked the moral cour- 
age to destroy it, although I knew full well if 
I kept it on my person I would read it — and 
regret so doing. Things worked out just as I 
had expected. I yielded and — my worst ap- 

35 



on, SHOOT! 

prehensions were realized. The message was 
from my wife, but beyond that fact there was 
nothing in its favor, for it read : 

Your secretary has forged a niunbcr of your checks and 
disappeared. Total amount unl-:nown, as checks are still 
coming in. Presume you gave him keys to wine cellar, for 
they, too, are missing. Wire instructions quick. Am ill, 
but stay, have a good time, and don't worry. 

I stared, numb and horror-stricken, at the 
sheet until I was roused by a mighty whir of 
rushing pinions. Those ducks had stood it as 
long as possible and were decoying to me, 
sitting up. Through force of habit my pal- 
sied fingers clutched at my gun, but, although 
the birds were back-pedaling idmost within 
reach, I scored five misses. Who can shoot 
straight with amount of loss unknown and 
certain precincts unheard from? Not I. 
Those broadbills looked like fluttering bank 
books. 

And the keys to the wine cellar missing! 
That precious private stock, laid in for purely 
medicinal purposes, ravaged, kidnaped! A 
hoarse shout burst from my throat; I leaped 
to my feet and waved frantically at the de- 
parting boatsman, but he mistook my cries 
of anguish for jubilation at the results of my 

36 



GEESE 

broadside, waved me good luck, and continued 
on his way. 

As I stood there striving to make my distress 
heard by that vanishing messenger, geese, 
brant, ducks, and other shy feathered crea- 
tures of the wild poured out of the sky and 
tried to alight upon me, or so it seemed. 
They came in clouds and I shooed them off 
like mosquitoes. One would have thought it 
was the nesting season, and I was an egg. 

I read again that hideous message as I 
undertook to reload, but I trembled the 
trigger off and barely missed destroying my 
left foot — 'my favorite. Never in the annals 
of battery shooting has there been another 
day like that. Those ducks reorganized and 
launched attack after attack upon me, but 
my nerve was gone, and the most I could do 
was defend myself blindly. 

I did spill blood during one assault, and I 
was encouraged until I found that I had shot 
one of Ri's live decoys. Beyond that, the 
casualties were negligible, and when the guides 
came to pick me up they had to beat the 
blackheads out of the decoys with an oar. 

As we pulled out of Ocracoke at dawn the 
next morning, the town was full of dead birds, 

37 



OH, SHOOT! 

and visiting sportsmen with eager, feverish 
eyes were setting forth once more for the gun- 
ning grounds. But we hated them. Flocks 
of geese decoyed to the mail boat whenever it 
hove to or broke down, and we hated them 
also. 

Upon my arrival home I found a wire from 
Ri reading: 



^t>' 



Too bad you left. Nathan killed fifty birds the next day 
and he can't hit a bull with a spade. 

However, take it by and large, it was a 
fine trip and a good time was had by all, which 
proves what I set out to demonstrate in the 
beginning — viz., you can't explain a hunter; 
you can only bear with him and allow nature 
to take its covuse. 



II 

THE CHRONICLE OF A CHROMATIC 
BEAR HUNT 

THE biography of the average big-game 
hunter is a bitter hard -luck story. As 
compared with his work, the twelve labors 
of Hercules were the initiatory stunts of a 
high -school sorority. If this were not so, we 
would have no game left. The "big-horn" 
and the Alaskan grizzly would soon be quite 
as extinct as the dodo. 

When Fred Stone and I determined to go 
bear hunting we chose Alaska, for several 
reasons. First, it was farther away than 
any other place we knew of, and harder to 
get to than certain suburbs of Brooklyn. 
Secondly, there are lots of bears in Alaska — 
black, white, gray, blue, brown, and the 
combinations thereof; enough to match any 
kind of furniture or shade of carpet. And 
I had been kindly but firmly informed that 
my trip would not be considered a success at 

39 



OH, SHOOT! 

our house unless I brought back a mahogany- 
brown skin, shading to orange, for the Hving 
room, and a large pelt not too deeply tinged 
with ox-heart red, to match the dining room 
rug. Fred was told likewise that the boss of 
his bungalow would welcome bear rugs of a 
French-gray or moss-green tint only. 

We began to hunt immediately upon leav- 
ing New York, and had secured some fine 
specimens before reaching Chicago, but we 
killed most of our bears between St. Paul and 
Billings, Montana. 

It was while dashing through the Bad Lands 
that Fred suggested bear dogs. "Great!" 
said I. "They'll save us a lot of work and 
be fine company in camp." Accordingly, we 
wired ahead for ' * Best pair bear dogs state of 
Washington," and a few hours after our 
arrival at Seattle they came by express. 
They were a well-matched pair, yclept Jack 
and Jill, so the letter stated; both were wise 
in their generation and schooled in the ways 
of bear. 

"They are a trifle fat," we read, "but they 
will be O. K. if you cut down their rations. 
Both are fine cold trailers. Kindly remit hun- 
dred dollars and feed only at night." We 

40 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

were informed that in Jill's veins coursed the 
best blue blood of Virginia, and that, although 
she was no puppy in point of years, her age 
and experience were assets impossible to esti- 
mate. This rendered me a bit doubtful, for 
Alaska is not a land for fat old ladies, but 
Fred destroyed my misgivings by saying: 

"Take it from me, she's all right. We 
don't want any debutante dogs on this trip." 

Jack was more my ideal. He had the ears 
of a bloodhound, the face of a mastiff, and 
the tail of a kangaroo, while his eyes were 
those of a tragedian, deep, soulful, and dark 
with romance. When he gave tongue, we de- 
cided he must have studied under Edouard 
de Reszke. 

One day in Seattle sufficed to augment our 
outfit with ammunition, fishing tackle, and a 
mosquito tent. I have long since learned 
not to carry grub into the north. 

Two years before, at the height of the 
salmon season, I had made a trip through 
the Copper River delta in a wheezy, smelly 
fish boat, and while tidebound, with the north 
Pacific pounding on the sand dunes to sea- 
ward, I had gazed across thirty miles of flats 
up into a gap of the great Alaskan range 

41 



OH, SHOOT! 

towards long, low-lying streaks of white which 
slanted down out of hidden gulches on op- 
posite sides of the valley, appearing to close 
the course of the river. 

"Glaciers!" announced the smelly captain 
of the smelly fish boat. 

"Live glaciers?" I queried. 

"Sure! On still days you can hear them 
'working' clear out here. Chunks drop off 
the size of a mountain, and splash out all 
the water in the river. There 'ain't any white 
men ever been up there." 

I spoke later with the smelly engineer, 
who was an old-timer in the country. 

"They come together, they do, buttin' one 
another like a pair of rams, grindin' and 
squcezin' to beat the band." 

"But how does the river get through?" I 
demanded, skeptically. 

"I don't know. Maybe it jumps over." 

The smelly deck hand shed even a dimmer 
light on that mysterious valley by informing 
me that, in order to pass those glaciers, one 
had to work along a perpendicular face of 
ice, chipping footholds and clinging with fin- 
gers and toes to dizzy heights above the river. 

My informants united on but one state- 
42 








RAILROAD CONSTRUCTION, COPPER RIVIiR RAILROAD 




FREIGHTING CONSTRUCTION SUPPLIES UP THE COPPER RIVER 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

ment: there were a great many bears up 
near those glaciers, for it seemed there were 
rapids of some sort where the animals came 
to fish during the salmon time; so many of 
them, in fact, that the banks were seamed 
with trails and the rocks worn smooth by their 
feet. 

I still had some eight thousand Alaskan 
miles to do that summer, so I could stay there 
no longer, but the determination to see those 
glaciers at close range and to examine those 
bear tracks had grown upon me steadily. I 
had told Fred of them, and it was thither we 
were heading now. Hence the mosquito 
tents, the ammunition, and the soulful bear 
dogs. 

For five days we plowed northward on a 
typical ratty Alaskan steamer, a thing of 
creaks and odors and vermin. On a drizzly 
May morning we docked at Cordova, the town 
which had sprung up at the terminus of Mr. 
Heney's railroad. The road was not really Mr. 
Heney's, but belonged to the Morgan- Guggen- 
heim interests, being destined to haul copper 
from their mines two hundred miles inland. 
Mr. Heney was building it for them, however, 
and everybody looked upon it as his personal 
4 43 



OH, SHOOT! 

property. It was hours before breakfast time 
when we arrived, but "M. J." himself was at 
the dock, for a purser on one of his freight 
steamers had apparently mislaid a locomotive 
or a steam shovel or some such article which 
Mr. Heney wished to use that morning, and 
he had come down to find it. He was not 
annoyed — it takes something more than a lost, 
strayed, or stolen locomotive to annoy a man 
who builds railroads for fun rather than for 
money and chooses a new country in which to 
do it because it offers tmusual obstacles. 

He welcomed us, drippingly, with a smile of 
Irish descent which no humidity nor stress of 
fortune could affect. 

"I'm sorry you didn't arrive yesterday," he 
said, "for it looks as if the fall rains had set 
in." It was the 21st of May and this was no 
joke, for Cordova is known as the wettest 
place in the world. 

"Bear?" said Mr. Heney. "Yes, indeed. 
We'll see that you get all you want." And 
from that moment until we left Alaska with 
our legal limit of pelts he made us feel that 
the labors of his fifteen hundred men, the 
building of his railroad, and the disbursement 
of millions of dollars were, as compared with 

44 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

our comfort and our enjoyment, affairs of 
secondary importance. And when we de- 
scribed to him the tints of our wall paper and 
rugs we got the impression that, whether we 
needed bears lavender, bears mauve, or bears 
cerise, it was thenceforth a religion with him 
to see that we found them. 

As to guides, there were no regular guides 
in this neighborhood, since there were no 
tourists — every resident had to earn his money 
honestly. But there were fellows about who 
knew the woods — Joe Ibach, for instance. He 
had just come in from a prospecting trip and 
might care to go a-bear hunting. So we de- 
scended upon Joe. Certainly he'd go. He 
didn't care to guide, however, as he had never 
"gid" any, but he'd show us a lot of bears, 
and carry the outfit, and row the boat, and 
do the cooking, and chop the wood, and build 
the fires, and perform the other labors of the 
camp. As for regular guiding, though, he 
guessed we'd have to see to that ourselves 
imtil he learned how. When we spoke about 
wages, he said he didn't think that sort of 
thing was worth money, showing conclusively 
that he was not a real guide. He had a long, 
square jaw and a steady eye, which looked 

45 



OH, SHOOT! 

good to us, so we agreed to do the guiding if 
he would do the rest of the things he had men- 
tioned — and see that we did not get lost. As 
to those mysterious glaciers towards which I 
had been working these two years, Mr. Heney 
said we could not reach them yet. The Copper 
River delta was full of rotten ice, and the 
banks were so choked with snow that it was 
impossible to take an outfit up before the 
slews cleared. Out at Camp Six, however, a 
number of bears had been seen, one in particu- 
lar so large that no day laborer could look 
upon his tracks and retain a sense of direction. 
Only the section bosses could stand their 
ground after one glance at his spoor. 

We were installed at Camp Six by 5.30 on 
the following afternoon and had unchained 
our dogs. At 5.49 Jack had found a porcu- 
pine. A man came running to inform us 
that he was "all quilled up," and so he was; 
his nose, lips, tongue, and throat were white 
with the cruel spines. 

"Get them out quick, or they'll work in," 
we were advised, and somebody produced a 
pair of tweezers, with which we fell to. But 
Jack suddenly developed the disposition of a 
wolf and the strength of a hippopotamus. 

46 




CAPTURE OF TWO BEAR CUBS 

John Bloomquest (left) and Jack Barrett (right) ; the cubs which they captured 

in the tree, while " Mr'. Bear" is lying dead on her back under the tree, where 

Barrett shot it when it attacked his companion 




TWO BLACK BEAR CUBS 




WE HAD NO MEANS OF MEASURING OUR PRIZE, BUT THE CARCASS WAS 
TREMENDOUS 

(Photograph tal:pn at niidni:;ht) 




THE DISTANCE FROM FRED STONE S BOOT TRACKS AND HIS SPENT SHELLS 
TO THE CARCASS WAS A SCANT TWENTY FEET 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

Followed a rough-and-tumble which ended by 
our getting his shoulders to the mat on a 
' ' half Nelson ' ' and hammer-lock hold. Those 
quills which we did not remove from the dog 
with the tweezers we pulled out of each other 
after the scrimmage. 

At 6.15 Jill notified us plaintively that she 
had discovered a brother to Jack's porcupine 
and had taken a bite at him. By the time we 
had pulled the barbs from her nose our supper 
was cold. 

"Well, it's a good thing for them to get 
wised up early," Fred remarked, wiping the 
blood and sweat from his person. "They'll 
know enough not to tackle another porcupine. 
They're mighty intelligent dogs." 

We were still eating — time, 6.44 — when a 
voice outside the mess tent inquired, "Whose 
dog is that with his nose full of quills?" 

We looked at each other and Joe com- 
menced to laugh. 

"Are there any dogs besides ours around 
this camp?" I inquired of the waiter. 

"No, sir," 

It was nearly midnight before Jill ran down 
her second victim and raised us from our 
slumbers by her yells, but by that time we 

47 



OH, SHOOT! 

had become so dexterous with the pincers 
that we could feed eacli other soup with them, 
so we were not k)n<; in getting back to bed. 

The next day it rained. It rains every day 
in this country, but nobody minds it. In 
fact, the residents declare they don't like sun- 
shiny weather, asserting that it cracks their 
feet. One Cordovan had undertalcen to keep 
a record of the sunshine, on the summer pre- 
vious, but had failed because he had no stop- 
watch. 

Before setting out Fred called my attention 
to Joe's rifle. 

"It looks like an air gun," said he. "It 
wouldn't kill a duck." 

Joe yielded the weapon up cheerfully for 
examination, and it did indeed look like a toy. 
Its bore was the size of a lady's lead pencil, it 
was weather-beaten and rusty, and the stock 
looked as if it had been used to split kindling. 

"She's kind of dirty now," the owner apolo- 
gized, "but I'll set her out in the rain to-night, 
and that will clean her up." 

My experience with Alaskan grizzlies has 
shown me that they are hard to kill and will 
carry much lead, hence in close quarters a 
bullet with great shocking power is more 

48 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

effective than one which is highly penetrative ; 
but when we suggested adroitly to Joe that he 
use one of our extra guns instead of this relic, 
he declined, on the ground that his old gun 
was easier to carry. 

We splashed through miles of muskeg 
swamp toward the forest where the big bear 
had been seen. We sank to our knees at 
every step; low brush hindered us; in places 
the surface of the ground quaked like jelly. 
We were well into the thickets before the dogs 
gave tongue and were off, with us crashing 
after them through the brush, lunging through 
drifts, tripping, falling, sweating. For ten 
minutes we followed, until a violent din in 
the jungle ahead advised us that their quarry 
was at bay. 

Joe took his obstacles in the manner of a 
stag, finally bursting through the brush ahead 
of us with his air gun in his hand, only to stop 
and begin to swear eloquently. 

"What is it?" I yelled, hip deep in a 
snowdrift. 

"Have you got them pinchers handy?" 
came his answer. 

For five days we combed those thickets and 
scoured the mountain sides without a shot, 

49 



OH, SHOOT! 

for those educated bear dogs got lost the mo- 
ment we were out of sight, and made such a 
racket that we were forced to take turns re- 
trieving them. They were passionately ad- 
dicted to porcupines. No sooner were they 
through with one than they tackled another, 
and when not wailing to be "unquilled" they 
"heeled" us, ready to climb up our backs at 
the appearance of any other form of animal 
life. 

"If we saw a bear they'd run between our 
legs and trip us up," declared Joe, disgustedly. 

Deciding, finally, that this section was too 
heavily timbered to hunt in without canine 
assistance, we sought more open country, and 
the next high tide found us scudding down 
the sound in a fast launch towards an island 
which for years had been shunned because of 
its ugly bears. Not a week before a party of 
native hunters had been chased into camp by a 
herd of grizzlies, hence we were in a hurry. 

We skimmed past wooded shores which 
lifted upward to bleak snow fields veiled by 
ragged streamers of sea mist. Into a shallow, 
uncharted bay we felt our course, past cliffs 
white with millions of gulls, under towering 
columns of rock which thrust wicked fangs up 

so 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

through a swirling ten-mile tide and burst into 
clouds of shrieking birds at our approach. 

We anchored abreast of two tumble- down 
shacks, and, as the afternoon was young, pre- 
pared for exploration. Ahead of us, rolling 
hills rose to a bolder range which formed the 
backbone of the island. The timbered slopes 
were broken by meadows of brilliant green, 
floored, not with grass, but with oozy moss. 

"We've got three guns in the party," said 
Joe, noting the preparations of Little, the 
owner of the launch, "so I'll take the camera 
instead of my rifle. If we see a bear, them 
dogs can't trip up more than two of us, which 
will leave one man to shoot and one man to use 
the machine." 

For hours we tramped the likeliest-looking 
country we had seen, but the wet moss showed 
no scars, the soft snow gave no evidence of 
having been trod, so I suggested that we di- 
vide, in order to cover more territory. Fred 
and Little, escorted by Jack and Jill, headed 
towards the flats, while Joe and I turned up- 
ward towards the heights. 

Far above timber line we found our first 
sign, and farther on more tracks, all leading 
down the southern slope and not in the direc- 



OH, SHOOT! 

tion of our launch; so away we plodded, over 
crater lakes half hidden and choked with 
fifty feet of snow, skidding down crusted 
slopes, lowering ourselves hand over hand 
down gutters where the snow water drenched 
us from above. In time we left the deeper 
snows for thick brush, broken by open patches, 
and a ten-o'clock twilight was on us when we 
spied a fresh track. The moss had slipped 
and torn beneath the animal's weight, and the 
sharp slashes of the claws had not yet filled 
with seepage. 

"He's close by," said Joe, shifting the 
camera. "Gee! I wish I'd brought my gun 
instead of this thrashing machine," and for 
the first time I realized that I had a new, 
small-calibered rifle with me, and had selected 
this day to try it, not expecting to have to 
rely upon it. 

At a half run we followed down the trail, 
for there was no difficulty in picking it up 
wherever it crossed an open spot; but, without 
warning, the hillside ahead of us dropped off 
abruptly and we emerged upon the crest of a 
three-hundrcd-foot declivity choked with devil 
clubs and underbnish, the tops of the spruce 
showing beneath us. Joe altered his course 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

towards the right when I saw, over the edge 
and not thirty feet away, a grizzled scruff of 
hair looking like the back of a porcupine. 

''There he is!" I called, sharply. "Look 
out for yourself ! " 

I stepped to the edge of the bluff, for after 
my first glimpse that angry fur had disap- 
peared — ^and looked down directly into the 
countenance of the largest grizzly in the world ! 
Halted by our approach, he had paused just 
under the crest. 

I have seen several Alaskan bears at close 
range, but I never saw one more distinctly 
than this, and I never saw a wickeder face 
than the one which glared up at me. His 
muzzle was as gray as a "whistler's" back, the 
silver hairs of his shoulders were on end like 
quills, while his little pig eyes were bloodshot 
and blazing. 

"What luck!" I thought, wildly, as the rifle 
sights cuddled together, but in that fraction 
of a second before the finger crooks, out from 
the brush behind him scrambled another 
bear, a great, lean, high-quartered brute of 
cinnamon shade, appearing, to my startled 
eyes, to stand as tall as a heifer. 

Now, I never happened to be quite so inti- 
53 



OH, SHOOT! 

mate with a pair of grizzlies before, and since 
that moment I have frequently wondered 
how they happened to impress me so strongly 
with the idea of a crowd. The woods seemed 
suddenly filled with bears, and involuntarily I 
swept the glades below to see if this were a 
procession, or a bear carnival of some sort. 
That instant's weakness cost me the finest 
pelt I ever saw, for at my movement bear 
number one leaped, and as I swung back to 
cover him I saw only a brown flank disap- 
pearing behind a barrier of projecting logs. 
At that distance I dared not take a chance on 
other than a head shot, so I jumped back, 
peering through the brush at our level, hoping 
to see him as he emerged. 

Joe rushed forward to the edge of the hill, 
as if about to assault the cinnamon with his 
camera, and stepped directly between me and 
where I expected bear number one to show. 

"Shoot! Shoot! Give it to him before he 
gets up here," he yelled, hoarsely. 

"Get out of the way!" I shouted, with 
my eyes glued upon the vegetation at his 
back. 

He was still screaming: "Shoot! Shoot!" 
when his voice rose to a squeak, for up through 

54 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

the undergrowth lunged the big cinnamon, 
nearly trampling him. The bear rose to its 
hind legs and snorted, while Joe did a brisk 
dance, side-stepping neatly from underneath 
his photographic harness and fairly kicking 
himself up and out of his rubber boots. 
Before either footgear or camera had ended 
its flight he had sized up the dimensions of 
every spruce tree within a radius of forty rods, 
and was headed for the most promising. 

I dare say my own movements were purely 
muscular at the time. I got out of Joe's way 
in time to avoid being badly trampled, only 
to glimpse through my sights a brown rump 
over which the brush was closing, and remem- 
ber deciding that with five shots in an untried 
weapon I didn't care to chance a tail shot, 
especially with that other big gray bear con- 
cealed within forty feet — and more especially 
since Joe had staked the only available tree. 

In the days which followed I cursed myself 
bitterly at the memory of those white-hot 
seconds. 

"Gosh 'Imighty! If I'd only had a six- 
shooter!" panted Joe, regarding me with dis- 
gust. "Why didn't you give it to him?" 

"I wanted to get the big one first," said I. 
55 



OH, SHOOT! 

"The big one! You never saw a bear any 
bigger than that one, did you?" 

"Yes; I tried to get a shot at the old gray 
one." 

" Do you mean to say there was two of 'em?" 

" I do ! And the big one was in yonder all the 
time. He may be there now, for all I know." 

As Joe picked up the camera he said, very 
quietly: 

"I guess your eyesight was a little bit scat- 
tered. You 'ain't seen any bear for quite a 
spell, have you?" 

I resented the innuendo, and began to 
declare myself vigorously, when he inter- 
rupted: "Come on! Let's get after them," 
and away we went up the mountain side, run- 
ning until we were breathless, guided plainly by 
great patches of torn moss and heavy indenta- 
tions. We ran upgrade until I stumbled and 
staggered from exhaustion; we ran until my 
legs gave out and my lungs burst ; we ran until 
I feared I should die at the next knoll ; and we 
kept on running until I feared I might not 
die at the next knoll. Up, up, and up we 
went, until, two hundred yards above, a mov- 
ing spot amid the timber halted us. 

"G-g-give it to him!" gasped Joe. But the 
56 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

sights danced so drunkenly before my eyes 
that it is a wonder I did not shoot myself in 
the foot or fatally wound my guide. Then we 
were off again across sink holes scummed 
over with rotten ice into which we broke, up 
heartbreaking slopes, and through drifts where 
we wallowed halfway to our waists. In time 
the tracks we followed were joined by others, 
at which Joe wheezed: 

"Byg-gosh! You — were — right; there was 
— two! Come on!" 

But, having righted myself in his eyes,! 
petered out completely. My legs refused to 
propel me faster than a miserable walk, so I 
turned the gun over to him and he floundered 
away, while I flopped to my back in the center 
of a wet moss patch and hoped a bear would 
come and get me. 

Ten minutes later I heard him empty the 
magazine, but as he reappeared I knew the 
shots had been long ones. 

"Say! That old gray one made the brown 
feller look like a cub," said he, and we were 
miles away from the scene before he broke our 
silence to remark: 

"You were wise not to shoot. If I'd *a* 
known that big one was so close to me I'd *a* 

57 



OH, SHOOT! 

tore my suspenders out by the roots and 
soared up over the treetops." 

Stone and Little, having covered the flats 
unsuccessfully, were rowing into the mouth 
of the creek when we slid down the bluff 
above the launch, but at my recital of our 
adventure Fred went violently insane and 
was for setting out for the scene of our en- 
counter at once. Eventually he was calmed 
and we rolled up for a few hours' rest on the 
floor of the launch. 

I was half roused by the coffeepot sliding off 
the stove into my face. A few minutes later 
the ashpan emptied its contents over me, and 
I awoke under a bombardment of dishes, oil 
cans, and monkey wrenches, to find the boat 
on her beam ends in the mud, with every 
movable thing inside of her falling upon us. 
Little was swearing softly in his underclothes 
and bare feet. 

"The tide is out and she's standing on her 
hands," he explained. "Confound a round- 
bottomed boat, anyhow ! " 

We stood on the starboard wall, of the cabin 
to dress, then walked ashore where there had 
been eighteen feet of water on the night pre- 
vious, to cook our breakfast in the rain. 

58 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

Up the hills again we went, determined to 
see at last what was in those bear dogs of ours. 
For five miles we trailed our game, across snow 
fields where their tracks were knee-deep, over 
barren reaches where it took all our skill to 
pick up the signs, until, without warning, the 
dogs gave tongue and went abristle. They 
were off, with us after them, the woods ringing 
to their music, the bears just out of sight 
through the timber. 

It was during the next hour that I proved 
to my own satisfaction that a two-hundred- 
pound man, considerably out of condition, 
can't outrun a bear. Perhaps it is because the 
bear knows the country better. 

Half a mile after I had quit running I found 
Fred panting and dripping on the other side 
of a stream. 

"Where's Joe?" I called. 

"At the rate he was going when I lost sight 
of him, he'll be due in Nome about noon, if 
his boots hold out," Fred answered, sourly. 
"Where's Little?" 

"Fallen by the wayside. How did you 
cross the creek?" 

* ' I didn't ! I ran through it. I'm wet to the 
ears." 
5 59 



OH, SHOOT! 

"Those are nice bear dogs of ours," I ven- 
tured, at which my companion's remarks were 
of a character not to be chronicled. ^ 

'"Kindly remit hundred dollars and feed 
only at night,"* he quoted. "Say, if those 
laphounds ever crab another shot for me I'll — ■' 

"And I'll do the same," I declared, heartily; 
and we shook hands over the compact. 

We found Little at camp, clad in a pair of 
bath slippers, drying out his clothes, but Joe 
did not show up until nearly ten that night, 
and then he came alone. 

"Did you kill those college bear dogs?" we 
inquired, hopefully. 

"I couldn't get close enough," he said. 

" Did you get a shot at the bears? " 

"No! About twelve miles back yonder 
those two picked up five more. Your eighty 
pounds of Mother Goose dog had four tons 
of bear on the hike when I quit. It looks like 
they're heading toward the north side of the 
island, and if we take the launch around to 
Big Bay to-night we may be able to pick them 
up to-morrow." 

It was high tide when Jack and Jill appeared 
on the bank, and as Joe boosted them over the 
rail they beamed upon us as if to say: 

60 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

"This has indeed been a glorious day, and 
we'll make this bear hunt a success if it takes 
all summer." We forbore to saddle them 
with what lay upon our souls. 

We anchored in Big Bay as a three-o'clock 
dawn crept over the southern range, only to 
be awakened a few hours later by another 
avalanche of pots and pans. The laimch was 
doing her morning hand stand, and I found a 
streamlet of cylinder oil trickling down my 
neck. Fred had been assaulted from ambush 
by a sack of soft coal, while the cupboard had 
hurtled a week's grub into the midst of Little's 
dreams. Joe alone was unconscious of his 
bedfellows, which comprised the rest of our 
cargo ; he was slumbering on his back, snoring 
like a sea lion at feeding time. 

A mile of tide fiats glistened between us 
and the shore; on every hand the hills were 
white with desolate snow. Having dressed 
stiffly, propped at various angles, we ate a 
cold breakfast, for the stove would not draw, 
and had it drawn we could not have held the 
coffeepot against it; then Joe and I lowered 
ourselves into the slime overside, for Little 
had decided to stay with the launch until high 
tide, while Fred's heels were blistered so that 

6i 



OH, SHOOT! 

he could not wear his boots. We went with- 
out the dogs. 

At nine that night I staggered wearily out 
from the timber on to the beach. A mile of 
mud lay between the bank and the water, 
and two miles beyond that I sighted the 
launch. Fred and Little heard my shots, and 
by the time I had reached the low-water line 
they were under way. Out another half mile 
into the creeping tide I waded, imtil it was up 
to the tops of my boots. I was utterly ex- 
hausted, my feet were bruised and pounded to 
a jelly, every muscle in me ached. For four- 
teen hours Joe and I had shoved ourselves 
through the snow, in places waist-deep, 
crossing canons, creeping up endless slopes 
until we had traversed the island and the open 
sea lay before us. Snow, snow, snow every- 
where, until our eyes had ached and our vision 
had grown distorted.^ 

Wehad found the tracks of those seven 
bears, but they were miles away and headed 
toward the west, whither we could not follow. 
We had become separated later and I had 
come home alone, ten miles as the crow flies, 
across the most desolate region I ever saw. 

I had followed a herd of five bears for 
62 




< a 



o J 




< 

2; 






A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

several miles, but had abandoned the chase 
when it grew late. One track I measured 
repeatedly from heel to toe of the hind foot. 
It took my Winchester from the shoulder plate 
clear up two inches past the hammer. 

Two hours after I was aboard we heard 
Joe's air gun popping faintly. He, too, had 
followed those five bear tracks, holding to 
them an hour after my trail had sheered off. 
We had covered better than thirty miles of 
impossible going and were half dead. 

The next day found us back at the cabins; 
for the north side of the island was too killing, 
and as Little had business to attend to, he 
left us, promising to send the launch back in 
ten days. Then followed as heartbreaking a 
week as I ever endured. Every morning we 
were off early, to drag ourselves in ten, twelve, 
perhaps fourteen hours later, utterly ex- 
hausted. Every noon we stopped to dry out 
over a smoky fire, for an hour's work on the 
slopes threw us into a dripping perspiration, 
which the chill wind discovered at the first 
breathing spell. 

Our feet were constantly wet from the 
melting snow, and the rain did what remained 
to be done. We stood barelegged and shiver- 

63 



OH, SHOOT! 

ing in the snow, our feet on strips of bark, the 
while we scorched our underclothes and swore 
at the weather. Finally, on one particularly 
drenching morning, Fred and I struck and 
declared for rest. Our feet and ankles were 
so swollen that we hobbled painfully, while otir 
systems yelled for sleep. 

About noon Joe said this idleness palled on 
him and he guessed he'd take a little trip. If 
he didn't get back that night we needn't 
worry, as he intended to follow any trail he 
struck until he got a shot, if he had to sleep 
out in the rain for a week. He took no grub, 
his outfit consisting, as usual, of the hand ax 
at his belt and the popgun between his 
shoulder blades 

"It '11 be just our luck for him to get a bear 
to-day," said Stone. "It's the first time in 
ten days we've laid off." 

"Maybe so," said I, "but if he shoots a 
bear with that child's gun and the animal 
happens to find it out, it may go hard with 
him." 

Two hours after dark we heard a voice out- 
side the cabin: 

"Hey! What do you think of this?" 

We hobbled out in our sock feet as Joe 
64 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

flung from his shoulders a great brown skin 
the ends of which dragged on either side. 
The fur was deeper than a man's wrist, the 
ears were a foot apart, the nose was curled in 
a ferocious snarl above the long yellow teeth. 

' ' See here ! " He held up a cub skin. ' * There 
was two other little fellers, but they got 
away." 

"What did I tell you? " Fred groaned. The 
fire of a consuming envy burned within us as 
we bombarded Joe with questions. 

It seems he had struck a trail on the other 
side of the range, and although it was twenty- 
four hours old he had followed mile after mile, 
rimning most of the way to cover, before dark, 
the distance it had taken the mother and the 
cubs two days to go. It was growing dark 
when he overtook them, high up on a moun- 
tain side covered with patches of gnarled 
spruce and wind-flattened bushes. 

"When I see I was close to *em I made a 
circuit up the hill so's to head 'em off," he 
explained; "but I underjudged her, and she 
must have snuffed me." He had told the 
first part of his story graphically, but at this 
point he closed his narrative in a sudden, 
matter-of-fact way. 

65 



OH, SHOOT! 

"Go on," we demanded, beside ourselves. 

*'Well, that's all. Just as I scrambled up 
where I could get a peek I seen her right on 
top of me, coming full tilt, r'aring up on her 
hind feet every few jumps for a look. She 
must have snuffed me." 

"Yes, yes. Hurry up!" we chorused. 

"Her nose was curled up just the way it Is 
now and she was roaring something fierce. 
She was so close I seen her eyes blazing and 
all her hair on end, but those cubs — say, you'd 
'a' laughed at them cubs. They was snarling 
like dogs and all headed for my legs." 

"Good Lord!" I ejaculated, sizing up the 
skin, which was fully ten feet long as it lay, 
"she must have looked as tall as a house." 

"Yes, she looked pretty tall," Joe agreed. 
"Have you got anything to eat handy?" 
But we forcibly gouged the rest of the story 
from him. 

"Well, she was so close on to me that I 
knew I had to get her — so I — did. But you'd 
*a' laughed at them — " 

"Where did you hit her?" we demanded. 

"Oh, in the eye. See!" He laid his finger 
on a tiny hole half an inch back of the half- 
inch eye, which was still fixed in an ugly stare. 

66 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

He apologized as he did so. "You see, my 
footing wasn't very good and I was half dead 
from running, or I'd have shot better and got 
her the first time." 

"Then you had to shoot again?" 
"Oh yes; twice more. She fell at the first 
crack, and that give me time to reload. When 
she riz up again I tried for her heart, but she 
throwed up her forearm, and all I did was to 
break her leg. Look! That give me a chance, 
though, for when she jumped at me the next 
time her leg give out and throwed her off, so I 
sidestepped her. But those cubs! Say, they 
was the funniest things! " He began to laugh. 
"I wanted to catch 'em, but they was too big. 
They was snarling around my feet all the time 
and I was kicking at 'em so's to get a shot at 
the old one. I had to knock this one down 
finally, which give me time to wallop the old 
lady in the neck. If I hadn't been so tired I'd 
have run down them other two, but they was 
too fast for me. I chased 'em half a mile, but 
somehow I couldn't get up to 'em. It's too 
bad she snuffed me." 

Joe had returned, skinned the two carcasses, 
and packed the hides in through the deep 
snow, although the mother's pelt alone was a 

67 



OH, SHOOT! 

heavy burden for a strong rnan on good 
footing. 

The cabin walls were not large enough to 
hold the skin, so our guide stayed in camp 
the next day to flesh and salt it, while Fred and 
I made another unsuccessful journey, covering 
twenty-hve miles of the territory where Joe 
had been. 

Three days later, when Little sent back the 
launch, we were ready to quit in disgust and 
head towards the Copper River glaciers, for 
the bears seemed utterly to have forsaken this 
island. We could find no fresh signs, we could 
discover no indications as to where they were 
feeding. 

A mile from the mouth of the bay we ran 
hard aground, and a falling tide left us high 
and dry, but held upright this time by the 
cabin doors, which we had removed and used 
as props. 

"I'm going over into those woods where 
Little and I went the first day," Fred an- 
nounced, and Joe went with him, while I, dis- 
heartened, went fishing in the channel. 

Having drifted opposite the mouth of a tiny 
creek without a strike, I rowed ashore and 
wandered aimlessly back into the open flat 

68 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

through which the stream meandered. It was 
the first time since landing in Alaska that I 
had been without my gun, and within three 
hundred yards from the shore I encountered 
fresh bear tracks. As I regarded them, a 
movement at my back caused me to whirl, 
and there, where I could have hit him with a 
stone, was my bear observing me curiously. 

We looked each other over for several mo- 
ments. We were both blonds, although his fur 
was a bit lighter than mine. When I moved, 
his hair rose; when he moved, my hair did the 
same. He was much the larger of the two. 
I matched him up with my dining-room rug, 
and he went all right. I must likewise have 
harmonized with some color scheme of his, for 
he took a step towards me. 

Remembering that my hunting knife was in 
the gunwale of the skiff and my rifle halfway 
across the bay, I closed the interview and 
went after them. It was a nice cool day and 
I hurried a bit. I felt light in the body and 
strong in the legs, which provoked in me a 
sudden disposition to disprove my previous 
theory that a two-hundred-pound man out of 
condition cannot outrun a bear. You see, 
this was the first bear I had encountered 

69 



OH, SHOOT! 

which really matched my furniture, and — in 
fact, there were sundry reasons why I in- 
creased my normal speed of limb. 

To stroll means to advance carelessly. I 
strolled up to the skiff so carelessly that I 
nearly broke a leg getting into it, then headed 
for the launch. Perhaps a rear view had con- 
vinced the bear that my hair was too stiff, 
or that I was not sufficiently well furred for 
his use ; at any rate, he did not pursue me, 
and in fifteen minutes I was back again and 
had taken up the trail. Two hours later I 
stumbled out of the woods, sweaty, smelling 
of blood, and supremely proud of a wet, heavy 
skin which dragged upon my aching shoulders, 
its points trailing on the ground behind me. 

It had been a matter of a quick, careful 
search with the glasses, a brown blot creeping 
across an open meadow, a lung-bursting de- 
tour to leeward, and then a breathless descent 
of the mountain side, till a fringe of brown hair 
showed through the grass. There had been a 
quick guess at where the shoulder should be, 
a vision of snarling white teeth, and a great 
bulk lifting itself up towards me; another 
squint at a hairy chest between two huge 
forearms, and then three snap shots which 

70 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

were all too high and tore the sod as the fellow 
went lumbering down the hill. Next a sud- 
den breaking down of the hind quarters, 
and twenty yards farther a loosening of all 
holds and a crash into the bed of a trickling 
gully. 

As I gloated barbarically over the mag- 
nificent carcass, up from the woods across the 
bay came the sound of four quick, faint shots, 
"Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!" as if Fred and 
Joe were answering my recent fusillade. 

It took me an hour to finish the skinning, 
and as I reached the launch I heard wild 
shouting across the mud flats. On the fringe 
of the timber I saw the two boys. 

"Somebody's hurt," exclaimed the engineer, 
but those yells carried a different note to me. 

"They've got a bear!" I yelled, gleefully. 
"Fred has got one at last." And ten minutes 
later, while still a half mile distant, he began 
to tell me about it. I answered with my story, 
neither of us distinguishing more than the din 
of his own voice. 

"I got — " came Fred's rejoicing, while the 
sun glinted on Joe's white teeth " — big grizzly, 
color— match— bungalow EXACTLY ! ' ' 

I ran towards them, joining in a muddy war 
71 



OH, SHOOT! 

dance on the sand bar wliicli had so kindly- 
delayed our departure. 

We all talked at once, but my companion 
had more ground for joy than I, for this was 
his first bear, and it had charged unexpectedly 
at a distance of fifty feet. 

"She was coming so fast when I saw her 
that I didn't have time to get scared," said 
Fred, "and it took four shots to drop her." 

"He only had four shells in his gun," Joe 
chimed in, admiringly. "He could almost 
touch her when she fell." 

"We came back for you and the camera. 
Get your gun quick and come with us; you 
never saw so many bear signs in your life." 

"They've all left the hills for the fiats," de- 
clared our guide. "That's why we've had 
such bad luck. We'll get a boatload before 
dark." So, taking time to gulp a mouthful of 
cold food, we headed back towards the thick- 
ets where Fred had disproved the old theory 
that your bear is a peaceful brute and will 
never deliberately attack a man. 

Within a mile of the launch Fred and Joe 
had picked up the trail of two big grizzlies, so 
fresh that the moss was still creeping and 
straightening where they had stepped. In the 

72 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

more open stretches of the grove the sunlight 
glinted down through the spruces, allowing 
the boys a considerable view, but for the most 
part the thickets were nearly impenetrable. 
The moss was like a velvet rug, so noiseless 
that only a snapping twig or a rubbing gar- 
ment served notice of their approach. 

They had been skirting a marshy slew 
tangled thickly with alders when they heard 
a sudden commotion behind them and the 
rush of some great animal through the 
undergrowth. 

' ' There he comes ! Give it to him ! " Joe had 
yelled, and, emerging from the brush fifty feet 
distant, had come a big gray fellow headed di- 
rectly at them, running in utter silence. Fred 
had never killed big game nor seen a bear at 
large, but years on the range and over the traps 
had quickened his eye and edged his muscles, 
and his shot went true. It is incredible that 
any living thing could have stood before those 
high-powered bullets, nevertheless that bris- 
tling body had never flinched nor wavered. 

"Give it to him again," Joe had barked, 
hoarsely, and Fred obeyed, for it had been not 
a question of a clean shot, but simply of 
emptying the magazine into that swiftly com- 

73 



OH, SHOOT! 

ing thing before it was upon them. The 
second missile lilcewise had gone true, but still 
there had come no sign from the silent animal, 
and again Joe cried out. The brief delay 
while the lever fell and rose had brought the 
brute into an open glade and past all ob- 
structions. 

I remember thinking, up there on the hill 
across the bay when I heard those four shots: 
"Both boys are firing. Those reports are too 
rapid to come from one gun"; but Joe had 
promised first blood to Fred and he never 
pulled trigger during the entire encounter. 

At the third shot the bear went to its neck 
and rolled a complete somersault, but its rush 
brought it up to its feet again, closer now and 
still coming. At the fourth report, however, 
it sank to its haunches, swung its head from 
side to side, thrust out a massive forearm, and 
settled at full length as a tired man lies down. 

"Give him another one to make sure!" Joe 
directed, but this time Fred's carbine clicked 
on an empty magazine. He stepped to the 
guide and gravely shook his hand, then asked: 

"Am I as white as you are, Joe?" 

Joe grinned. "Well, you're pretty white,'* 
said he. 

74 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

''But I got him!" 

"You sure did!" Then they shook hands 
again. 

When they led me to the scene of the 
tragedy, I paced the distance from Fred's 
boot tracks and his spent shells to the carcass, 
and it was a scant twenty feet. Every mark 
was plain in the soft ground, even to the leaps 
of the bear, which we traced back across the 
twelve-foot stream to its hiding place; and I 
wish, at the risk of arousing the ire of every 
peaceful naturalist and nature singer who may 
read this, to go on record as vouching for the 
truth of this encounter. I assert this upon 
the evidence of my own eyes and the words of 
my two companions. The bear was a female 
Alaskan brown grizzly, so called. She was 
alone, without cubs, and she deliberately 
attacked two hunters who had passed her and 
were walking away, crossing a creek to get at 
them. 

We hunted these woods for a week with 
varying success; then, as we were anxious to 
be off for the glaciers, in a moment of weak- 
ness we put Jack and Jill in for a drive, while 
Fred and I took stands on the beaten trails. 
It required thirty-six hours to retrieve those 
6 75 



OH, SHOOT! 

dogs, for they became separated from Joe 
while in chase of a fretful porcupine, and could 
not find their way back to the boat. When 
we reached Cordova we gave them to a man 
whom we did not like, first exacting from him a 
solemn promise that he would give them a bad 
home and treat them unkindly. 

In the brief time we had been camped on 
the island the railroad had stretched itself 
onward to the lower crossing of the Copper 
River, so we loaded a skiff upon one of Mr. 
Heney's fiat cars and saw it safely into the 
muddy waters of the stream. 

The Alaskan glacial region, for which we 
were bound, is very extensive; in fact, the 
entire coast from Wrangel on the east, which 
lies close up against the Canadian border, to 
Cook Inlet, a thousand miles west, is ice-bur- 
dened. The north Pacific thrashes against 
the base of a saw-toothed range which sweeps 
in a great curve, forming the Gulf of Alaska, 
and it is this towering, jumbled confusion of 
peaks which mothers the ice fields. The 
heights in places are saddled with prodigious 
areas of ice, the spurs of which creep down 
through rents and gaps to lower altitudes, or 
grind their tortuous courses outward to the 

76 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

sea. Those which front navigable waters 
have been well stared at by a generation of 
tourists, but there are other fields which lie 
back from the coast and are but vaguely- 
mapped, as, for instance, those which debouch 
upon the Copper River at the head of the 
delta. It was thither that I had been aching to 
go these two years past, and it was thither we 
were headed now in our skiff, the river having 
finally broken, to investigate for ourselves 
this place of mystery, to see at close range 
those famed bear tracks which had smoothed 
the rocks. 

Considerable ice was running, among the 
hurrying fragments of which the head of an 
occasional seal glistened. The delta was bare, 
but the mile-high mountains at our left were 
white wherever the cliffs were not too steep. 
Every crevice and gutter amid the peaks 
emptied itself at midday in a cascade of snow, 
and, warmed by the sun, the whole range 
rumbled under these avalanches, some tiny, 
some huge, all adding to the vast snow-dimips 
at the foot of the wall. Whenever, with the 
glasses, we observed a trail crossing these up- 
tilted white fields, we landed, crossed the 
flats, and waded up to it. If it was recent, we 

77 



OH, SHOOT! 

followed; if not, we resiimed our laborious 
journey, for there, apparently a half day's trip 
ahead of us, beckoned the glaciers. But when 
we camped the first night, in a bleak thicket 
of willows, although a goodly distance lay 
behind us as payment for our day's effort, we 
seemed no closer to oiu* goal. 

It was raining the next morning, but Joe 
and I were off early along the foot of the steeps, 
and a mile from camp we saw a bear approach- 
ing leisurely. We crouched, watching him 
through the glasses imtil he dipped out of 
sight, then we ran as far towards him as we 
dared. Again we waited, imder cover this 
time, but he did not reappear, so I swung up 
the mountain side over a bluff, while Joe 
advanced along the valley. Before I coiild 
reach the crest of the ridge, however, I saw 
my companion aim up a gully and heard the 
"spat" of his rifle. He emptied his maga- 
zine twice before I emerged upon the summit 
— ^with the animal seven himdred yards be- 
yond and above me. 

Together we aroused the echoes, but the 
snow gave no evidence as to our aim, and when 
the bear made off along the mountain side 
Joe set out like a Marathon runner to parallel 

78 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

his course. I shouted directions and guided 
him by my waving arms, for there was no hope 
of my catching up. With a lucky shot, when 
the bear showed against the nose of a promon- 
tory, Joe inflicted a foot wound, at which the 
animal paused an instant to snap, and then 
together they dipped out of sight, to show 
again a mile farther on, running neck and neck. 

I descended and followed for a time, then 
headed back towards camp in disgust, only to 
see approaching across the very" bluff whence I 
had signaled, another bear, the counterpart of 
Joe's running mate. I sized up its course, 
then, backing out of sight, commenced to 
climb. Lord! How I climbed. It was like 
running up the endless slope of a slippery 
church roof. 

When I played out completely and could 
go no farther, I crept out for a look, but the 
snows were as clean as paper. Manifestly 
some whim had altered Bruin's route and he 
had gone up that same seam by which the 
first bear had eluded us. That meant more 
climbing, now, so up towards the svimmit of 
the five-thousand-foot range I scrambled, 
while the higher I went the steeper it grew 
and the louder I puffed. Eventually the 

79 



OH, SHOOT! 

snow field I was ascending narrowed into a 
gutter between bold cliffs through which had 
poured the countless tons forming the great 
drift below. I came into a chute where the 
bottom was like glass and where I was in 
fear some playful avalanche might send me 
whizzing down that two-thousand-foot to- 
boggan. Below and back of me lay forty fiat 
miles of alluvial plain ; in front of me the wall 
reared itself to perpetual white. 

I was wheezing upward on all-fours, my 
lungs bursting, my pores dripping, when I saw 
the bear crossing over my head where the 
defile widened, funnellike. It was similar to 
target practice up the slant of a spire with 
nothing to indicate the range, but some un- 
natural movement of the brute told me I was 
shooting close. Before I could recharge the 
magazine, however, he was across the slide and 
swallowed up in the alders. Another hard 
climb, and the red snow told me he was indeed 
wounded. But how to get him out, now that 
he had the advantage? I gouged more toe- 
holds with my Remington and pursued my 
ascent until the snow lay at such an angle that 
I feared my weight might start it, then crept 
gingerly into the brush. 

80 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

An hour later I was still flattened against 
the slope, working my way through the hang- 
ing alders, when I spied Joe far below me, 
returning. He heard my signal and came 
toiling upward. 

''Mine got away!" he called, when within 
speaking distance, "but this feller won't get 
far, bleeding like that." 

Together we wormed our way through the 
tangle, here searching out a broken twig, 
there noting a leaf spotted red. We were 
perched upon a ledge thickly obstructed with 
vegetation, when the bear rose to his haunches 
immediately in front of us. 

"Let him have it!" said Joe, kneeling to 
afford me room. "I 'ain't got but one shell." 

"Look out for your ears," I cautioned, aim- 
ing over his shoulder. It was a hard shot at 
those two red eyes through the leaves, for I 
was contorted and unbalanced by the slanting 
alder trunks and my footing was insecure. 

"You got him!" Joe cried, but when we ad- 
vanced the animal had disappeared as if by 
magic, leaving neither trace nor trail. 

"He's down yonder somewhere. I heard 
him fall." 

We could see nothing, so we lowered our- 



OH, SHOOT! 

selves blindly, swinging clear in places, trust- 
ing to roots and branches, until we were 
halted by a sheer drop and must needs climb 
back by crevice and finger-hold, then worm 
ourselves sidewise for a hundred feet to an 
easier point of descent. 

Sure enough, the bear lay wedged in be- 
tween the snow and the foot of the precipice, 
three himdred feet below where I had shot, 
and when we had boosted him free, away he 
went again, rolling, tumbling, somersaulting, 
his tongue lolling, his legs flopping loosely. 
We planted our feet, and, leaning back against 
our rifles, skidded after. A clump of willow 
tops saved him and us from a plunge into the 
stream — and we had him. Such a pelt for 
softness and beauty I have seldom seen. It 
matched the library, and I am ankle deep in 
it as I write. 

After the first day the speed of the waters 
rendered oars useless, so we bent a hundred- 
foot line to the bow of our skiff and another 
shorter one to the stern, then gave ourselves 
over to the labors of "lining." The two men 
on the forward rope gave us motive power, 
while the third member of the party steered 
with the stern line. 

82 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

Day after day we bent to our towllnes and 
toiled onward, with the muddy water boiling 
past, and still those glaciers retreated ahead 
of us. Gradually the current became swifter 
and the floating ice larger, until to avoid it be- 
came a matter of importance. This rendered 
the rear man's duties more difficult and required 
the exercise of some skill and judgment, for 
it is no infant's task to navigate a heavy-laden, 
flat-bottom skiff up through a freshet clogged 
with 40 h.p. bergs, every one of which is ex- 
ceeding the speed limit. An insufficient drag 
on the stern line and the craft may be groimd 
to splinters against the rocks; a pull too vio- 
lent and the bow is thrown across the current 
at such an angle that the vicious force of the 
waters capsizes it. In either event the outfit 
is lost. 

The banks were overhung with ''sweepers'* 
and thick with brush, through which we 
wormed our way and around which we passed 
oirr ropes. When we undertook to make a 
crossing, in spite of our most frantic efforts we 
landed far below. And we were not in the 
main river, by any means. We waded bars 
waist-deep; we fell in up to our ears; we 
tugged and hauled with aching arms and blis- 

83 



OH, SHOOT! 

tered palms, virtually ascending that stream 
hand over hand as a man climbs a rope. We 
worked until we were all in, then camped, or 
went hunting, for it was daylight always, 
excepting only an hour's twilight at midnight. 

On one such night we scaled Sheridan 
Glacier, a great, dead thing of ice and desola- 
tion which lay back next to the range, sepa- 
rated from the river by a confusion of lakes and 
ponds and beaver dams. These dead glaciers 
differ from live ones only in that they are now 
motionless and gradually melting year by year 
as the elements prey upon them. 

We began to feel that we were entering 
another world, a region of wonders where 
living things were minute and inconsequent 
and where the dead forces of nature were so 
hugely manifested as to dwarf all else, and, 
while ostensibly we were hunting, in reality we 
were merely looking. All day the narrowing 
mountain walls rumbled with avalanches, all 
night the faint thunder of rending glaciers 
and tumbling bergs rolled down upon us. In 
miles the distance we had to traverse was not 
great, but in labor and isolation it was 
tremendous. 

Late one June evening, after a killing day, 
84 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

we stiimbled up through a gorge where all the 
waters of the Copper River are confined. It 
is a roaring place, for the waves lift themselves 
head-high and the ice scuds by with the speed 
of wild horses. An Arctic twilight was over 
all — that diffusive radiance through which the 
sight travels so far — when we finally rounded 
a bend into an eddy, and paused to breathe 
and to observe that Thing which loomed 
suddenly before us. 

I hope never to lose the memory of that first 
impression. There was Childs Glacier at last, 
with the ravenous river gnawing at it, a tower- 
ing wall of solid ice, serrated and seamed, the 
dead grayness of infinite age upon its face. 
And so close ! We fairly felt its presence before 
we sensed the chill breath which swept down 
from it. There were no intervening miles to 
rob it of its grandeur; its very proximity was 
terrifying, it was so strange, so unknown, so 
lifeless, and yet so menacing. 

We heard ourselves exclaiming, but our 
spoken words were a profanation in such a 
presence. 

A great berg, an acre in extent, came swiftly 
towards us, the saffron waters licking at its 
sides. It was as blue as a summer sky, and 

85 



OH, SHOOT! 

it came as if gliding on steep, well-oiled skids. 
When abreast of us it halted, then lifted itself 
up, up, up until it towered like a ship in dry 
dock, while the yellow flood roared savagely 
at the delay. There came a dull rumbling and 
grinding, much like the soimd of a heavy train 
in a tunnel, as its own momentum and the 
resistless force of the river drove it higher 
and higher upon the detaining bar. It shud- 
dered, swung slowly, then commenced to roll be- 
fore the current like thistledown in a draught. 
The sound ceased, the mass dived suddenly 
from view, then reappeared slowly, shook off 
the surging waters, and was away again, 
nmning faster and faster. Silent as a ghost, 
it vanished aroimd the bluff below us. 

We bent our puny efforts to the skiff and 
crept onward, our eyes too busy to heed the 
boulders which tripped us and rolled beneath 
our feet. Gradually the bluff beneath which 
we walked became higher and steeper until it 
must have been fifty feet high and overhung 
as if cut out by the action of a heavy surf. At 
the time we did not note the significance of 
this, for we were engrossed in the spectacle 
opposite; but later we had ample cause to 
remember the peculiar formation. 

86 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

In places the ice wall opposite was like 
crusted snow, again it was opaque or cloudy, 
while beyond or above were patches ranging 
from pale azure to the purple that lurks in a 
mountain valley. These vivid colors lay often 
in ribbons, and the melting streamlets from 
above had likewise laced the glacier's front 
with delicate chocolate lines like the wrinkles 
in the face of a hag. And always the hungry 
river gnawed it. 

We were opposite the lower shoulder, where 
the ice cliffs overhung, when the glacier spoke 
for the first time. There was a boom like the 
report of a cannon many times multiplied, and 
a half mile ahead of us a piece of ice detached 
itself, then plunged a hundred feet sheer down- 
ward into the river. It left another blue scar 
for the air slowly to bleach. We had heard of 
the peril from falling bergs — stories of boats 
swamped by the waves, of men cavight beneath 
the overhanging banks and swept away — ^but 
we had put them down as fanciful and exag- 
gerated, so when Joe dropped the towline and 
dashed excitedly back towards the skiff I was 
inclined to laugh. 

"Look out for the boat!" he cried. 

My answer was framed when the surface 
87 



OH, SHOOT! 

of the water upstream seemed to hump itself 
and a swell came curling down along the shore, 
urged by the current. It was coming faster 
than a man could run and, although insig- 
nificant at first, of a sudden it assumed the 
proportions of an ocean roller. We seized 
the gunwales and plunged in up to our waists, 
but the water sucked away from the shore 
while the boat bumped and slid and tilted over 
the rocks; then, as suddenly, we were sub- 
merged to our armpits and found ourselves 
struggling to discover bottom and to keep the 
skiff from overriding us as we were swept up 
the embankment. 

"Hold fast!" we yelled to Fred on the end 
of the line, and he set his heels against the 
rocks, wrapping himself with the rope like the 
anchor man on a tug-of-war team. 

We felt bottom again, and again we were 
sucked downward, with our arms half_dragged 
from their sockets. 

When the commotion had at last subsided 
and our badly wrenched and now badly leaking 
craft was again in the river, Joe observed: 

"One more of those and we won't have any 
boat. And that was a small one, too!" 

It was perhaps ten minutes later that a tre- 
88 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

mendous sound echoed behind us and we 
whirled to see such a sight as I had but vaguely 
dreamed of. Directly opposite the point of 
our encounter with the wave a towering 
column of ice had split itself away from the 
face and was leaning slowly outward. Faster 
and faster it moved, its summit describing a 
great arc, until with one terrific roar it plunged 
its length across the flood, flinging tons of 
water up, up until they seemed to reach the 
level of the glacier top itself, only to fall back 
and add to the chaos beneath. The ice did 
not crumble nor break, but fell proudly in 
solid column, stretching a third of the distance 
across the river's bed, its vast bulk damming 
the stream. 

It was much as if the Flatiron Building had 
leaned forth from its foundations and plunged 
to destruction. At the moment of impact 
there was an explosion as if from a terrific 
charge of powder, which hurled missiles a 
hundred pounds in weight in long parabolas 
across the torrent and far into the brush 
beyond. Then out from beneath the mass 
rushed a gigantic wave, growing as it raced 
towards the shore where we had been but a 
few moments before. 

89 



OH, SHOOT! 

We heard the sound of that tidal wave as 
it bore down upon the fifty-foot bluff which 
we had just passed. And we now recognized 
the force which had cut it out — a quarter 
mile of it — and had changed a slope into a 
perpendicular wall up which no man could 
possibly have climbed. To be caught in 
such a trap would have been to perish cer- 
tainly. We saw the wave engulf the land, 
then surge over and beyond it up into the 
alder trees, which swayed and whipped each 
other frantically. It was terrific, appalling, 
unspeakably tremendous. 

We found ourselves straining at our boat in 
an endeavor to avoid the path of that swell, 
but the furious current all but killed it before 
it reached upstream to us and we were merely 
bruised and battered as before. Had we been 
ten minutes later, however, it would have 
meant our destruction. Twice more did this 
thing occur before we had covered those 
treacherous three miles along the glacier, but 
each time we were above the scene and the 
racing current saved us. 

I think we grew somewhat frightened, 
walled in against that Presence by the steep 
banks; at any rate, at every explosion we 

90 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

fetched up violently at the end of our towlines, 
backs to the wall, like tethered steers, and 
when the last unstable precipice was behind 
us we congratulated ourselves. 

But an even greater wonder confronted us. 
The river turned at right angles and there 
stood Miles Glacier, the big brother to Childs, 
which we had jtist passed. It fronted us 
boldly, a gunshot distant, so it seemed, a 
huge, desolate monster thrice the size of Man- 
hattan Island, with a ragged base five miles 
across, wedged into a valley so tightly that it 
seemed to split the mountains asunder. In 
reality it was four miles away, but we saw its 
every smallest detail and followed it with our 
eyes up into the range until it melted into dis- 
tances which no man has ever covered. Its 
edges were dead and blackened as if by decay; 
in places its front looked like a row of gigantic 
white-cowled monks. The lake which lapped 
it, in reality a broadening of the river, was 
choked with drifting ruins of ice held prisoner 
by a bar at the lower end where the waters 
escaped. Pastured thus, the bergs cruised 
lonesomely, drifted by wind and wave, towed 
in fantastic figures by unseen eddies. At 
times they clashed, or charged in long forma- 
7 91 



OH, SHOOT! 

tions, as if this were a martial field for those 
two dead, yet living, rivals which had roared 
and gnashed at each other since the beginnings 
of time. 

The vanguard of Mr. Heney's army was 
here — a handful of engineers drilling for bed- 
rock on the site of his upper bridge. That 
bridge, by the way, now spans the river be- 
tween the ice fields, allowing the railroad, 
which dodges past the face of one of them, to 
avoid the other by crossing back. That little 
zigzag meant millions of dollars in steel and 
rock and cement, but beyond lie cotmtless tons 
of copper ore. 

We camped on the promontory wliich lies 
between the glaciers, where some day will 
stand the most famous tourists' hotel on the 
continent, for the time is surely coming when 
men and women will journey thither from all 
quarters of the globe. Day and night, at 
intervals, the giants bombarded each other, 
the action increasing with the rising waters. 
It awoke us in the night, it awed us in the day. 
It filled us with a sense of such tremendous 
destruction that we watched jealously, as if 
each spectacle might be the last. The mind 
could not grasp the fact that, no matter how 

92 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

great or how rapid the ruin, there was an inex- 
haustible supply of ice constantly edging for- 
ward to take the place of that which fell off. 
We felt as if the glaciers must surely destroy 
themselves, but a week of warm weather, 
during which the breakage was constant, had 
no visible effect upon them. As a matter of 
fact, those glaciers are still there, although 
they have been working for several years, so 
many years, to be exact — and let us be exact — 
that if a geologist were to begin to figure it 
out when he left college he would have a gray 
beard so long it would trip him up before he 
had finished the problem. 

After a particularly large cave-in it was the 
custom of the engineers to search the rocks 
for king salmon thrown out by the waves. 
The bears were likewise fishing up at the 
rapids — the surveyors had seen them through 
their transits — so on the afternoon following 
our arrival we set out across the lake, searching 
our way through the drift ice. 

" Look out for the eddy below the cataract," 
they admonished us. "If your boat gets into 
that you won't get out. Keep as close to the 
glacier as you dare — but not too close, either, 
or a tidal wave may swamp you." 

93 



OH, SHOOT! 

Out on the lake we began to feel more fully 
the immensity and the desolation of this place. 
We were in a forgotten spot where man's 
presence was a desecration. Out through 
every rent and crevice in the mountain walls 
glaciers large and small stared at us with dead, 
blind eyes. Floating all about us were bergs 
from the size of a water goblet to the size of 
the Lusitania, and they were green or white 
or blue or purple; some carried cargoes of 
dripping mud, others were weighted with 
piles of rock. Sometimes they rolled as 
if weary of their prehistoric burdens or as if 
seeking more easy positions, each movement 
uplifting new angles and utterly changing 
their outlines. We traced features of men 
and shapes of beasts in them. Some wore pre- 
posterous hats, millinered by the sun itself. 
They filed about in an aimless yet ordered 
confusion, pirouetting, bowing, sailing off at 
apparently causeless tangents. 

It was a goblin place until one recognized 
the forces which did the shifting as nothing 
more supernatural than currents and rips 
formed by the great cataract which dashed in 
from above, together with the hidden stream 
which flowed out from beneath the glacier it- 

94 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

self. Repeatedly we found ourselves spinning 
in the grip of an eddy, with a herd of icebergs 
wallowing behind us. I remember one sea- 
green fellow which followed at our stern, 
lunging after us no matter whither we turned, 
or were turned, and which it took us several 
minutes to shake off. 

We landed, then worked our way up past 
the cataract, where the river leaped and bel- 
lowed and the snow banks overhung. It was 
much like the Royal Gorge below Niagara, 
only there were no plank promenades nor 
souvenir postal cards. The opposite side was 
a sheer mountain slope slashed here and there 
by snow slides. On one of these we saw a 
bear. While we were watching him, another 
one came in sight a half mile upstream. The 
two crept down to the edge and began to fish, 
standing motionless above the eddies where 
the salmon rested, to execute at intervals a 
lightning-like flip with their forepaws and 
send a silver fish whirling out upon the bank. 

The first animal was in range, but Fred 
declared its color was wrong. 

"If you get him he'll cost you a new carpet," 
he said, so we crept up opposite the other, the 
tumult of the cation drowning our approach. 

95 



OH, SHOOT! 

It was a long shot, but we wounded him, then, 
realizing that he would surely roll into the 
flood if he loosed his hold for one single in- 
stant, we allowed him to scramble up into the 
brush and then prepared to go after him. It 
meant a nine-mile trip back over the moraine 
to our boat, out through those ice fields and 
eddies to the western shore, then up along the 
side of the canon and into the brush, but it 
promised a new problem in the way of bear 
hunting, namely, first to search out the bear, 
then to hold him against the mountain side; 
so we turned back. 

We were a mile from our skiff when Joe 
paused. 

' * Look ! Look at them tracks ! ' ' 

We whistled in unison, for in front of us 
was a trail so huge as to seem unreal and so 
fresh that we cocked our guns nervously. 

"Let's get after him!" we whispered, and 
away we sped over the glacial debris, picking 
up the track wherever it crossed the snow. 
On the rock ridges we went by guess, craning 
cautiously into each gully and past each sum- 
mit, for the ground was indescribably broken 
and we did not wish to step on this particular 
bear. 

96 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

It was Joe's good luck — we chose to call it 
luck — to get the first shot. He was hidden 
from us when we heard his toy rifle speak and 
tore madly in the direction of the sound. 
Half a minute later " Spat ! " it went again, and 
then came two more shots in rapid succession. 
It was worth a man's life to run'on such jagged 
footing, but we had an idea that this was to be 
a battle and we knew that Joe was alone with 
the largest animal we had met. 

Sure enough, as I dashed across a snow field, 
I saw our guide suddenly appear on the ridge 
above me like a phantom, silhouetted against 
the evening sky. He was bareheaded — ^it took 
us three days to find his hat — ^his rubber boots 
were straddling at a ridiculous distance from 
each other, and he was hitting it off at the 
rate of one hundred yards in nothing and 
three-fifths seconds. He was looking back- 
ward over his shoulder, fumbling at his hip 
pocket for shells; nevertheless, he coursed over 
those loose boulders with the sureness of foot 
of a mountain goat. He dipped out of sight 
as suddenly as he had appeared. I heard him 
cracking away again, then the louder report 
of Fred's rifle. 

An instant later I reached the top and, 
97 



OH, SHOOT! 

glimpsing a huge brown body rushing towards 
us in prodigious leaps, I joined in the fusillade. 
The monster's great w^eight bore him deeply 
into the snow, which he flung behind him at 
every plunge, and yet, shocked and torn by 
those exploding bullets, he still came on and 
on, a tremendous, ungainly figure of rage and 
determination. 

Even when he was down to his haunches 
and deathly sick, he reddened the snow in a 
futile endeavor to continue that charge. It 
was a magnificent exhibition of courage, and 
he died facing us, as befits a monarch, the red 
glare of rage still in his eye. 

"Whew! I certainly stepped around a bit 
that time," said Joe, wiping the sweat out of 
his eyes. "My first four shots never fazed 
him, so I thought I'd sort of withdraw and 
reload on the run, but I couldn't seem to 
locate you fellers nowhere." 

We had no means of measuring our prize, 
but the carcass was tremendous, so large, in 
fact, that our united efforts were barely suffi- 
cient to roll it over. The skin stretched twelve 
feet in curing. 

We ate our midnight supper on the sands 
beside a driftwood fire, then rowed out through 

98 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

the whirling eddies and around to the opposite 
shore, for we had not forgotten that wounded 
bear. A mile over ice and mud brought us to 
a wide, swift slew which we did not know 
existed and which was running ice. We were 
tired of detours, so we stood ankle-deep in the 
slime beside a snow bank and undressed, then, 
with our clothes and rifles above our heads, 
we waded in. 

It was very funny! In fact, it handed us 
the best laugh of the trip. When Joe rose 
upon his tiptoes and gingerly ballet-danced 
into that yellow stream, Fred and I shrieked 
with glee, he made such funny noises and 
looked so white and tender. From the far- 
ther bank he turned upon us a drawn and 
sour visage, which changed at sight of Fred, 
who had suddenly fallen silent at feel of the 
water. 

Never in the same space of time have I 
endured more bitter suffering than that gla- 
cial stream inflicted. When halfway across I 
stumbled on a bovilder and dived completely 
out of sight, holding desperately the while to 
my bundle. The other boys choked and chat- 
tered hysterically. To dress in dripping gar- 
ments on a snow bank at 3 A.M. is perhaps the 

99 



OH, SHOOT! 

king of outdoor sports — It makes one feel so 
manly and strong and rheumatic. 

We chipped footholds in the crusted snow- 
slides which overhung the rapids, creeping 
cautiously along slopes where a misstep or a 
slip meant a downward shoot of a hundred 
feet into the torrent. We were clinging thus 
at one point when two brown bears met us, 
but there was no chance to save them had we 
fired, and they were off after one frightened 
whiff of us. Nor could we find the fellow we 
had wounded, search as we might, so back we 
went across those hair-raising, slippery tobog- 
gans again, balancing in the toeholds we had 
previously made. Again we waded Chinaman 
Charlie Slew, with its slush ice up to our chests, 
and, thirty-six hours after leaving, dragged 
ourselves back into camp. 

To the hunter there is an unwearying variety 
to his "kills," yet in the telling I dare say they 
are all much alike. One episode, however, is 
worth recounting. In crossing a torrent by 
the familiar tree-trunk route Fred met a black 
bear which seemed late for an appointment. 
Off it went into the foam below at the first 
shot, only to rush out and up the hillside, 
with Fred teetering on his perch like a canary 

lOO 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

and firing at every glimpse. The animal had 
gained complete cover when it released all 
holds and came rolling back down into the 
torrent, to be swept away, with Fred legging 
along behind until he could wade in and drag 
out his victim by the ears. 

We had matched all the shades of our wall 
paper now, save only that in my blue room, 
but a blue, or "glacier," bear, rarest of speci- 
mens, is killed perhaps once in a lifetime. I 
scoured the glaciers until I went snow-blind 
and could not tell a black from a grizzly. We 
saw a pair of blues one night on the Miles 
moraine, and followed until our legs gave out, 
whereupon Joe left Fred and me behind 
and continued the pursuit, returning empty- 
handed after a total of forty-eight hours' travel. 

Time was when I dared any man to outlast 
me, but subways and pavements and hotel 
cooking have so ruined my usefulness that a 
paltry thirty miles of hill and valley renders 
me a burden upon the community, while such 
a jaunt seemed merely to start Joe's circula- 
tion. Day after day Fred and I tried to 
follow him step by step, until we discovered 
that each of his strides was four inches longer 
than ours. We increased our revolutions, but 

lOI 



OH, SHOOT! 

always ran out of gasoline and had to be 
towed in. 

It was late in June now, and the bears had be- 
gun to rub — that is, to lose their winter coats — 
so one morning we lashed our paraphernalia 
into the boat and said good-by to our hosts, 
the engineers. Below us Childs Glacier was 
unusually active, because of the rising waters, 
and we could hear the bergs dropping at 
frequent intervals. 

"If she breaks behind you, just run for it 
and try to keep ahead of the wave," advised 
the engineers. ' ' If she breaks ahead of you — ' * 
There was a difference of opinion, some holding 
that it were better to swing toward the oppo- 
site bank and chance the surf, others claiming 
that such a course was madness and that a 
boat, on the contrary, might live if headed 
directly into the comber, provided, of course, 
that the backlash did not suck it under the 
glacier itself. 

"We'll walk down to the lower bend and see 
if you come out," they said, and, allowing them 
an hour to cross the moraine, the running 
time by water for that three miles being ten 
minutes, we removed our coats, kicked off our 
boots, and shoved out. 

102 



A CHROMATIC BEAR HUNT 

We sought the middle of the river where the 
current was swiftest, and leaned against our 
sweeps. Away we shot directly towards that 
towering face of ice until the river boiled 
against it; then we swung at right angles 
and found the wall overhanging us. As we 
neared the first turn the glacier split, at which 
our hair rose and we disjointed our necks, but 
the piece did not fall, and an instant later we 
were headed down the three-mile chute, wal- 
lowing in waves which drenched us and 
wrenched at our oar blades. 

I never knew until that day that a man can 
hold his breath for ten minutes. Joe swore all 
the way, talking to the glacier as if it were a 
near relative on his wife's side. 

"Look yonder!" he said, suddenly. 

Ahead of us a two-hundred-foot slab seemed 
almost severed from the mass behind. It 
overhung and seemed to be tottering. 

"Just give us two minutes more, you 

," Joe shouted, profanely, "then you can 

fall and be ." 



It gave us one minute — two minutes — 
thirty seconds — and we were past, only to find 
ourselves rushing towards other places which 
seemed equally perilous. It was very excit- 

103 



OH, SHOOT! 

ing, although I dare say we greatly exag- 
gerated the risk, and sufficiently intense to be 
remembered. I preserve no keener recollec- 
tion than the nickel-plated memory of that 
quarter hour. It was worth the whole trip. 

We sailed around the lower bend, waved oiir 
hats at the men on shore, who shouted a fare- 
well, then we scudded into the gorge below. In 
five hours we were back at the railroad whence 
it had taken us five days to come. Then a 
flat car to town, a bath, a barber, and strange, 
clean clothes with creases in them, and finally a 
steamship, a cordial invitation to come back 
the next season, and a hasty farewell. 

Mr. Heney's railroad has been completed 
long ere this, and some day, alas! there 
will be a hotel on our camping ground, with 
Swiss guides, French menus, and Klondike 
prices ; but man is powerless to desecrate that 
noble spectacle. To him who is jaded or 
fagged I can suggest no surer tonic than a pil- 
grimage thither. However world-weary or 
wonder-sated he may be, I promise him a new 
thrill, a strange sensation, a cleaner mind and 
body, and an abiding wonder at the works of 
God. 



Ill 

THE SAN BLAS PEOPLE 

I WAS in Panama and, feeling the need of in- 
formation, I called on Wilcox. Everybody 
in Colon, when in need of anything, calls on 
Wilcox, for he has lived a long time in the 
tropics, his interests are ntmierous and his ex- 
periences varied. He can sell you lumber, 
hardwood, coco- and ivory-nuts, rubber, tor- 
toise shell, "movie" tickets, schooners and 
steamships, derby hats, sealing wax. 

But Wilcox will give you things, too, as I 
had reason to know, so I explained myself. 

"We are taking wild-life moving pictures, 
and we have about four miles of film, mainly 
animal, fish, and scenic stuff. We want some 
^ood native pictures, and I'm wondering if 
you can help us get into the San Bias country." 

Mr. Wilcox thought a moment; then he 
nodded. 

" I know the very man to pilot you. He's a 



OH, SHOOT! 

negro named Victor. He knows every reef 
and key; he has traded with the Indians and 
he speaks the language. I'll have him meet 
you at Playa Damas. But pictures — moving 
pictures!" Wilcox was frankly doubtful. 
"You may get some, and you may not. No- 
body has ever even snapped them except by 
stealth. They're shy, you know." 

I did know, or, at least, I had heard. I had 
heard many things about the San Bias tribe, 
even on an earlier trip to Panama, and what I 
had learned at that time had so interested me 
that I straightway wrote a San Bias story — 
and sold it. That which had particularly in- 
trigued me was the statement that no white 
man had ever slept on the San Bias shore, 
that no San Bias woman had ever been to 
Colon, and that the San Bias blood had never 
been crossed. In reading the chronicles of 
Padre Somebody-or-other, I learned that the 
early Spanish explorers had found an amaz- 
ingly industrious race of aborigines occupying 
the Darien coast, and had reported the steep 
slopes of the mountains, which there cling 
close to the Caribbean, to be in a highly in- 
tensified state of cultivation. I encountered, 
also, an interesting account of a shipwrecked 

1 06 



THE SAN BLAS PEOPLE 

conquistador who had joiimeyed across the 
Isthmus, falHng in by the way with a people 
who had much gold. When I learned that 
these people still existed in much the same 
state as when those worthy senors passed 
through; when I learned that the San Bias 
coast, only eighty miles to the east, was still a 
land unknown, even to the Panamanians who 
own it, and a land over which they exercise no 
control ; when I saw San Bias men with derby 
hats and "middy blouses" and great golden 
earrings sail their solid-mahogany cayucas into 
Colon harbor; and when that story about the 
San Bias women was told to me — I simply had 
to write. At that time, I had wanted to go, 
look, see, but I could not. Now that I was 
back again, equipped with a yachtlet and a 
motion-picture outfit, I determined to verify 
my local color. To hunt hostile Indians with 
a camera promised entertainment and profit — 
hence this visit to Wilcox. 

"Jimmy Hyatt can fix it for you to take the 
pictures, if anybody can," Mr. Wilcox con- 
tinued. "He has opened up a manganese 
mine at this end of the coast, and he is going 
down there soon. The Indians tried to run 
him out, but he stuck, and now he is friendly 

8 107 



OH, SHOOT! 

with some of them. You'll have a good time, 
even if you don't get any pictiires." 

"I hear they are pretty sour towards 
strangers," I ventured. 

" Some of them are," Wilcox agreed. " Down 
near the Colombian line they have guns and 
aren't very civilized. But they're nice peo- 
ple as a whole. I wish I were able to go 
along." 

There was a "rum" game running at the 
Strangers' Club, and there I found Mr. 
Hyatt. Hyatt is the sort of man strangers call 
"Jimmy" — one of those rare, accommodating 
souls whose time is devoted to doing favors for 
people who have no possible claim upon him, 
and yet who has time enough left to attend to 
his own affairs, and most efficiently. He was 
delighted to inconvenience himself to any 
extent, and agreed to be ready when Salisbury, 
my companion and copartner in this sensitized- 
celluloid enterprise, had stocked the Wisdom 
with grub and ice. 

A fresh trade-wind was blowing when the 
Wisdom nosed out through the breakwater 
and headed toward South America. While 
she hogged her way through the swell I held 
my deck chair in place and tried to wring 

io8 



THE SAN BLAS PEOPLE 

from Hyatt the story of the discovery of his 
manganese mine and that attempt of the San 
Bias men to run him out, of which Wilcox had 
spoken. But Hyatt, among his other traits, 
possesses modesty, that bane of story writers. 
He told me little except that he had learned 
of the deposit from rubber hunters and, in 
order to examine and locate it, he and his 
partner had deemed it the part of wisdom to 
land outside of San Bias territory and ap- 
proach it from the rear. It was not until I 
met that partner in New York, some time 
later, that I learned the true facts — how the 
two of them had left their launch with in- 
structions to pick them up at a certain time 
at the mouth of a certain creek on the Bay of 
San Bias, and then had struck out overland, 
cutting their way as they went. They foimd 
the manganese, but they had less luck in find- 
ing their launch. They waded out waist-deep 
through mud and mangroves to discover the 
boat on the horizon, and close at hand some 
fifty San Bias cayncas drawn up in a semicircle 
before the mouth of the creek. The occupants 
of those cayucas had waited long and pa- 
tiently. It was twilight, the mosquitoes were 
bad, and there was a suggestion of alligators 

109 



OH, SHOOT! 

and other undesirable neighbors among the 
mangrove roots. 

Mr. Hyatt's partner leaned over his ma- 
hogany desk and assured me, quite needlessly, 
that it was not his idea of a pleasant situation, 
for the reception committee was grim, hostile, 
and suspicious. There was an utter absence 
of those fluent, flattering amenities to which 
distinguished visitors are accustomed, and the 
delegation seemed determined upon convinc- 
ing these interlopers, without loss of time, 
that the San Bias country had a fatal climate 
and was no nice place for strangers.^ Dia- 
phragm-deep in the slime, Hyatt and his part- 
ner parleyed. Speech was exchanged. 

"They finally agreed to put us aboard our 
boat, provided we would go away and never 
come back," the latter told me. "I didn't 
return, but Hyatt did. He opened the mine, 
and— we're discharging another cargo of man- 
ganese in Jersey City this afternoon. It's 
fine stuff, and prices are high." 

As I say, these side-lights on manganese 
mining came to me later. 

Towards sundown, the Wisdom anchored at 
Playa Damas, in the roadstead off Nombre de 
Dios, where Columbus first stepped foot on 



no 



THE SAN BLAS PEOPLE 

the mainland of the Western World, and Victor 
came aboard. Victor was a lean black man 
with bad teeth but an agreeable smile. That 
night the swell rolled us out of our cots — it 
was too hot to sleep below — and the rain beat 
under our deck awning. 

We wallowed out into the open again at day- 
light, trolling for kings and mackerel as we 
went. About noon we breasted Cape San 
Bias, swung through an opening in a foaming 
reef, rounded a tiny key covered with palms, 
and anchored off the governor's house. 

Shortly before this, the Panamanian govern- 
ment had begun an effort to tame the San 
Bias people and to reclaim their coast, and 
to that end it had established this post. The 
taming and reclaiming process had not pro- 
gressed noticeably at the time of our visit. 

Governor Huertado was polite and friendly, 
being, I think, lonesome for a sight of new 
faces. He volunteered to meet us the next 
day at Cardi, the largest village at this end of 
the coast, and to act as envoy extraordinary to 
the chief, an offer we gladly accepted. His 
doctor showed us some few photographs he 
had clandestinely secured during official visits 
to the various towns, but discouraged us from 

III 



OH, SHOOT! 

attempting to emulate his success. He de- 
clared there existed among these benighted 
heathens a senseless prejudice against cameras. 
They regarded a lens as the devil's eye, and a 
black box as his abiding place. He offered to 
buy from us, at a flattering price, any films 
showing San Bias women. Our ignorance and 
our optimism amused him. 

On our way to Hyatt's mine we gained some 
idea of this forbidden country. We were in 
a magnificent harbor dotted with small 
islands — the upper end of the San Bias ar- 
chipelago, which extends more than a hun- 
dred miles to the Colombian line. Mountains 
stood back from the sea ; the placid sound was 
guarded by an inner and an outer row of 
reefs and keys, the latter crowded with coco 
palms, all huddled together as if to keep their 
feet dry. These keys were like clean, or- 
derly, little picnic grounds; they were green 
jewels ringed with settings of gleaming white. 
Through the glasses we could see villages of 
thatched houses and great numbers of what 
looked like bits of paper blown broadcast by 
the wind. They were the sails of countless 
cayucas, heading homeward. 

Our course to Cardi, on the following morn- 

112 



THE SAN BLAS PEOPLE 

ing, led close to several islands, massed to the 
water's edge with grass houses. We made no 
attempt to land, for these were Colombian 
Indians and unfriendly. This was Panama, 
to be sure ; nevertheless, the Colombian colors 
floated over these villages, and, as we drew 
near, additional emblems of the same sort 
were unfurled. Men ran out with flags the 
size of handkerchiefs, on short staves, which 
they thrust into the sand — the San Bias 
manner of emphasizing the fact that they 
were not at home to callers. 

Cardi, the "Place of Dead Bones," is the 
largest and best village at the western end of 
the archipelago. It occupies a key perhaps a 
quarter of a mile long and four feet high, but 
it is a beehive. Great palm- thatched houses, 
many of them sixty feet or more in length, 
crowd one another so closely to the water's 
edge that only here and there is room left 
to draw up the cayucas. To walk around 
it without wading is impossible. It flew the 
flag of Panama, in honor of Governor Huer- 
tado's visit, as did a twin village close by. 
But between these two stood a third island, 
and over it the Colombian emblem fluttered 
brazenly. 

"3 



on, SHOOT! 

Our .'irn'val caused a sensation, for Salis- 
bury, with rare inspiration, had opened the 
flag lockers and decked the Wisdom from stem 
to stern with the yachtsman's panoply, Wc 
came to anchor in an impressive silence, 
observed by many pairs of black eyes. As we 
were getting out the small boats, several dug- 
outs, manned by naked boys, put oil and cir- 
cled us at a respectful distance. These canoes 
were amazing. Some were so huge as to 
dwarf their tiny occupants; others seemed no 
larger than gravy boats or pickle dishes, and 
in these latter sat babies. 

Our camera man rushed to the rail, but at 
sight of the camera and its terrifying glass 
eye the youngsters squalled loudly and spat- 
tered shoreward like a brood of wikl ducklings. 
Victor, now a man of importance, landed us 
in the dinghy, for Governor Huertado was 
waiting. 

Cardi reminded me of pictures of Papuan 
villages. Huge steep - roofed houses were 
crushed side by side; in an open landing place 
the inhabitants had gathered, and they eyed 
us curiously, coldly, as we approached. The 
men were short, broad-shouldered, capable; 
the women were of pygmy size, and every other 

J14 



THE SAN BLAS PEOPLE 

one bore a baby on her hip. They wore gold 
nose rings and brilliantly colored dresses, 
these women, and they were strangely shy, 
inordinately bashful. When one looked 
squarely at them they disai)peared, melted 
away, only to reajjpear when one's glance had 
traveled on. But that which challenged at- 
tention was the boys. There were scores of 
them — splendid, straight-limbed, manly little 
fellows. They were half demented with ex- 
citement; nevertheless, they were decorous. 
Every mother's s(m of them was stark naked. 
We bent double to enter a door in the 
nearest wall and followed Victor towards the 
chief's house. Through a vast, gloomy in- 
terior with low log beams, from which de- 
pended parallel rows of hammocks, we made 
our way, then out into a street so narrow that 
we large-framed visitors had to walk in single 
file, stooping to avoid the sharp ends of 
bamboo rafters. The men and the boys 
went with us. There was a great scuffling of 
naked feet, but no other sound. From every 
crevice between the upright poles which 
formed the house walls the bright black eyes 
of women peered. From behind closed doors, 
usually a single plank hewn from a mahogany 

IIS 



OH, SHOOT! 

or cocobolo log, came whispers, a smothered 
agitation, the occasional wail of a frightened 
baby. Hyatt cautioned us : 

"Mind, now — don't laugh at the chief. 
He's very dignified, and you mustn't josh 
him." 

For my part, I had no desire to laugh. I 
was too intensely interested, nor was the chief 
the sort of man I would select to banter. He 
was a rugged, strong-faced man, with a brown 
derby hat which he wore like a crown. He 
was seated on a long bench in the center of his 
great house. On his left was a straw-haired, 
pink-eyed, blue-gummed albino; on his right, 
a villainous individual with a muzzle-loading 
shotgun. He shook hands without rising, and 
by the time Victor had made the introduc- 
tions the big room was jammed with Indians. 

The chief listened politely enough to Vic- 
tor's translations of our greetings, but he 
maintained a strict neutrality. He neither 
frowned nor smiled; he refused to commit 
himself. The court chamberlain thoughtfully 
caressed his antiquated firearm. I squeezed 
myself into a seat beside the albino and studied 
him with fascination while he stared fixedly 
down his nose. 

ii6 



THE SAN BLAS PEOPLE 

On a beam in front of us were several litho- 
graphs — ^one of the Crucifixion, another of the 
late King Edward VII, a third showing an 
African explorer and his naked gun bearers 
in a desperate battle with some faded-blue 
crocodiles which had gnawed one end of 
his canoe to the bone. They were products 
of the Paris-green pre-half-tone, nature-faking 
school of expression. 

Having paid fulsome respects to the chief, 
we explained that we desired nothing from 
him or his people, that we had nothing to sell 
or to buy, that we wanted neither lands nor 
coconuts, and that we were all happily mar- 
ried. When he had digested this amazing 
intelligence, the chief spoke. From his tone, 
from the light in his eyes, I am sure that a 
literal translation of his words was: 

"Well, what do they want?" 

This was Salisbury's moment, and he rose 
to it. He gestured magnificently; his smile 
was warm and friendly, and it embraced every 
hostile countenance. 

"Tell the chief that we are different from 
any white men he has ever seen. We're not 
looking for mines; we don't want any lands, 
for we have both. We are immensely wealthy. 

117 



OH, SHOOT! 

We are so rich it annoys us, and we travel for 
pleasure. We do nothing but visit interesting 
people. We have seen all the Indians in the 
world except the San Bias, and now we have 
come to make friends with them." 

Victor perspired some in putting this over. 
Hyatt and the governor nodded ; I arched my 
chest and undertook to look rich. Salisbury 
continued : 

"We have heard that the San Bias are 
honest people, that their men are strong, their 
women beautiful, and their children good. 
We have heard that they make the finest 
canoes in the world and know how to sail 
them, but we want to see. We like to hunt 
and fish, and we will give all that we kill or 
catch to the chief. Now then, we don't want 
anything for nothing; if the San Bias Indians 
will be good to us, we will agree to take come 
nice pictures of them and show the world what 
superior people they really are." 

Victor managed this at the cost of many 
strange and asthmatic sounds. 

"We make many presents." Salisbury 
beamed benignantly; a careless prodigaHty 
was in his gesture. "We distribute vast sums 
of money wherever we go. For instance, we 

ii8 



THE SAN BLAS PEOPLE 

will get up a cayuca race, and to the man 
with the swiftest canoe we will give" — he 
paused dramatically — ^"a beautiful gold 
watch. Or, if he doesn't want a watch, we 
will give him its full value in money — four 
dollars, silver. To the second man we will give 
two dollars, and to the third man one dollar." 

Inasmuch as Panamanian money — ^silver — ■ 
is worth only fifty cents on the dollar, this was 
a handsome offer indeed. When this enticing 
proposal had been fully translated, the chief 
smiled. 

"We'll do more." Salisbury was growing 
reckless. "We'll give prizes to the fastest 
swimmer among the men, among the boys, 
among the women. We'll have games and 
dances and make a present to the handsomest 
girl. We'll send her a copy of her photograph ! 
Oh, we'll have the best time the San Bias 
people ever had, and they'll be sorry when we 
leave!" 

They fell for it. Discussion became lively. 
There was less hostility in their glances ; little 
girls with enormous necklaces of silver coins 
began to sidle into view. But it was slow 
work getting acquainted. Through every 
crevice in the walls bright eyes continued to 

"9 



OH, SHOOT! 

watch us, and we could see that the place was 
surrounded by women. After a time, their 
curiosity proved too much for them and they 
likewise edged in through the doors. Some 
of them — ^bold, brazen characters, no doubt — 
had the courage to stand close behind us. 
Fingers touched us; tiny brown hands ex- 
plored our garments. By and by we began 
to distribute change among the children and 
to play with the babies. Thenceforth we got 
along splendidly. 

It was after the chief and some of his head 
men had accepted our invitation to lunch with 
us that an incident occurred which briefly 
threatened not only to interrupt our relations 
and destroy what understanding we had es- 
tablished, but also to involve us in a decidedly 
awkward situation. We were on our way out 
to the yacht when we heard a gunshot. 

"Who fired that gun?" Hyatt inquired, 
quickly. We could not imagine. 

As we neared the Wisdom we saw signs of 
something untoward, for canoes were scuttling 
shoreward and our crew was rushing about the 
deck. Next we discerned the body of a man 
laid out upon one of the cots ; a bare brown 
calf and arm hung over the side. 

I20 



THE SAN BLAS PEOPLE 

Hyatt cursed eloquently. 

" Somebody has shot an Indian," he declared. 
"That means we're in a mighty bad fix." 

But it was not an Indian. One of our 
sailors, in cleaning an automatic pistol, had 
sent a steel-jacketed "forty-five" through 
his knee. It was a bad wound; we were a 
hundred miles from a hospital, so away went 
our fine plans, temporarily, at least, and we 
hoisted anchor and pushed the Wisdom at top 
speed out to the governor's residence. 

The doctor, after an examination, declared 
positively that our man must have the best 
surgical attention, so Hyatt, the operator, and 
I took the cameras ashore, and Salisbury, 
blaspheming sulphurously, turned the Wisdom 
seaward and bore the sufferer away. 

Knowing that the Indians were as timid as 
deer, it was with some apprehensions that I 
returned to Cardi on the following morning to 
advise the villagers that our regatta was only 
postponed and to assure them that we would 
permit no further carelessness in the use of 
firearms while we were their guests. They 
responded more readily than I had dared 
hope, and when the Wisdom hove in sight, two 
days later, we were again personce grates. 

121 



OH, SHOOT! 

There followed an absorbing two weelcs, 
during which we accomplished much that we 
had come for. We held those contests, and 
no Poughkeepsie excursion steamer was ever 
more thickly crowded at an intercollegiate 
rowing race than was the Wisdom. Indians 
swarmed over her until she threatened to cap- 
size; they rushed from rail to rail, to the 
despair of the camera man, who was busily 
grinding away. We spent much time ashore, 
surrounded by troops of adoring boys, who 
clung to us and followed us everywhere. It 
was not so easy to gain the women's confidence 
and to take their pictures; we were put to 
many stratagems and cultivated consider- 
able teamwork in doing so, but we succeeded. 
Evenings, the men came off to visit us, and 
rows of naked boys perched along the rails 
like blackbirds. We told them about other 
Indians in other lands, about tribes who lived 
far from the ocean and rode horses, like the 
white men; about others who dwelt in the 
far north, where it was never warm and where 
the sea grew solid with the cold, so that men 
could stand upon it, where dogs were driven 
to sleds, where houses were built of snow and 
people walked with big nets on their feet. I 

122 




A FRESH WIND WAS BLOWING WHEN THE WISDOM NOSED OUT THROUGLT. 
THE BREAKWATER AND HEADED TOWARD SOUTH AMERICA 




SEVERAL DUGOUTS, MANNED BY NAKED BOYS, CIRCLED US AT A RESPECT- 
FUL DISTANCE 




THE START OF THE RACE 

No Poughkecpsie excursion steamer was ever more thickly crowded at an intercollegiate 
rowing race than was the Wisdom 




A SAN BLAS CANOE 

The oddest and the best sailing canoe in the world 



THE SAN BLAS PEOPLE 

doubt if they believed us. In turn, they told 
us much about themselves, their lives, and 
their customs; about other San Bias villages, 
away back in the hills, where the people 
hunted with blow pipes and poisoned darts 
and where no white men had ever been; 
about the origin of the San Bias cayuca, the 
oddest and, I believe, the best sailing canoe in 
the world. 

Our phonograph was a never-ending joy 
and mystery, especially to the boys, who by 
this time had adopted us and made them- 
selves masters of the ship. They peered into 
its vitals and imitated its sounds. Then they 
fetched reed pipes and made music for us. 
These pipes were in sets of seven and, in using 
them, two players faced each other. The 
tunes were primitive, pastoral, barbaric, as 
were the dances that went with them. 

The San Bias are suffragists. The woman's 
position in the household, her voice in affairs, 
are reminiscent of that female dominance 
which, we are assured by history sharks, 
existed anciently. They are an industrious 
people, too. Every morning, long before day- 
light, the rising-call runs from house to house, 
fires flicker, and then, in the first gray dawn, 

9 123 



OH, SHOOT! 

come rain, come shine, one sees ghostly fleets 
of cayucas blown, like moths ahead of a gale, 
towards the mainland or the reefs and keys 
outside. The San Bias coconuts are very 
fine, and the Indians are rich in trees. The 
islands are covered with them, and other 
groves line the rivers. There appear to be 
no exact land boundaries, and frequently a 
man will own a single tree here, another there 
— in which event he respects his neighbor's title 
and gathers only the fruit that belongs to him. 
While the man works with his crops, the 
woman does her laundry. Every day is Mon- 
day, for they are a cleanly people, and every 
garment must be washed at least once a day. 
Soap grows wild on trees, in the form of 
globular berries, and they use vast quantities 
of it. In no village did I discover any filth; 
in no house did I encounter unpleasant odors. 
They have, in fact, a tribal custom, of the 
highest sanitary value to a crowded tropical 
people, which absolutely forbids the careless 
practices common to primitive races, and which 
makes the ocean the immediate receptacle of 
all refuse of whatever character. As a result, 
they do not suffer from dysentery, hookworm, 
and similar diseases. 

124 



THE SAN BLAS PEOPLE 

The women love bright colors ; their waists, 
or blouses, are quite wonderful examples of 
needlework, and carry striking patterns made 
by sewing many layers of cloth one over the 
other. About the hips is wrapped a narrow 
length of coarse cloth, frequently painted, 
which reaches barely to the knees. This is 
the work dress. Their calves are tightly 
wrapped with beads and, in consequence, they 
are misshapen, but rarely does a stranger 
catch more than a glimpse of these ornaments, 
for an outer skirt, consisting of a wider strip 
of brilliant calico, is usually worn. Owing to 
their diminutive size, it is difficult to dis- 
tinguish the women from the girls except by 
their hair, and here must be mentioned a 
custom peculiar, so far as I know, to the 
San Bias. 

We had heard of the hair-cutting ceremonies 
and of the big drunks that accompany them; 
we had been warned to avoid the villages 
where a so-called chicha was in progress, lest 
we have cause to take suddenly to our boats, 
leaving our hats behind us. In fact, when we 
arrived at Cardi, the chief informed us, with 
the melancholy languor peculiar to a "hold- 
over," that he was but just recovered from a 

125 



OH, SHOOT! 

three-day celebration during which many 
demijohns of chicha — rum — had been drunk, 
and in one house we came across a pen of 
banana leaves, around which were gathered 
several old crones, who warned us away and 
led us to understand that we were profaning 
some holy of holies. ; 

Explanations came in time. When a girl 
arrives at marriageable age, her hair is cut for 
the first time, to the accompaniment of certain 
rites and formalities, and she is secluded for 
eight days in one of these pens. None but 
the elder women are allowed to see her, and 
during the first three days of her sequestra- 
tion they carry calabashes of sea water, which, 
at intervals, they pour over her. The child 
is kept constantly drenched, and, meanwhile, 
the father, having purchased as much chicha 
as he can afford, joins in a general carousal. 
Visitors come from other islands and stay as 
long as the liquor lasts. There seems to be 
little drunkenness at other times. As may 
be imagined, a chicha is a thing to be avoided 
by strangers. Traders up anchor and sail 
away, for drunken Indians are not a bit more 
pleasant than drunken white men. 

After her three days* baptism, the budding 
126 



THE SAN BLAS PEOPLE 

San Bias woman remains isolated for five days 
more. A year later she is considered ready 
for marriage, and thenceforth her hair is kept 
cropped. 

It was Billy Smith, a man who had sailed 
the seas in big ships and returned to finish his 
days with his own people, who explained to 
me the reason for this and for other customs. 
We were out in the chief's "thousand coconut " 
cayuca, scudding ahead of half a gale of wind. 
The chief's son was straining at the great ma- 
hogany steering paddle, while Billy clung to a 
rope from the top of the mast, swinging him- 
self far overside when the canoe heeled. He 
talked as we flew through the white water. 

"It is hard for the girl to be cold and wet," 
he told me, in his halting EngHsh; "but it 
must be, for we live in the sea, like savalo, and 
every day, as long as she lives, that woman 
will be in the water at some time or other." 

"What is your marriage ceremony?" I 
inquired. 

"Well, when my daughter is ready to 
marry, my wife and I will pick out a young 
man who works hard. We will ask his papa 
and mamma if they like us and our daughter. 
If they say, 'Yes,' we will ask the boy." 

127 



OH, SHOOT! 

"Suppose he doesn't love your girl?" I 
queried. Billy was puzzled, so I amended 
my question. "Suppose he doesn't want to 
get married?" 

"Oh! He will say so, and we will ask some- 
body else. If he don't mind, bimeby he will 
visit us. When night comes and the girl goes 
in her hammock, we will take the man and put 
him in the hammock, too. Sometimes the man 
gets up and runs away." 

"What then?" 

Billy shrugged. 

"That means he ain't ready to be married. 
If he doesn't run away he will go ashore in 
the morning and bring wood for the fire. The 
girl will cook his breakfast and — they are 
married." 

"Do you have divorce?" 

" Oh yes. Sometimes a man or a woman is 
lazy. Then they go apart, and the man must 
move to another island, and they can't marry 
again for five years." 

Marriage does not separate the San Bias 
woman from her parents, for the husband 
comes to live with her. In consequence, a 
family of twenty members, all living in a great, 
single-roomed house, is not uncommon. While 

128 



THE SAN BLAS PEOPLE 

the privacy may not be all that a blushing 
bride craves, the custom at least does away 
with the hoary-whiskered, Anglo-Saxon, 
mother-in-law joke, and therefore has its 
points. 

How or when the derby hat was introduced 
to this coast I don't know, but rumor has it 
that Wilcox is responsible. These hats are 
all alilce. They are worn on state occasions, 
and since they are all of one size, regardless of 
the size of the heads beneath, I am inclined 
to believe that Wilcox is indeed to blame. He 
is a grave man, but he has a sense of humor. 

According to another story, he once had a 
stick of red sealing wax in the cabin of his 
schooner, and when a brave came to him with 
a stomach ache he pulverized it — the sealing 
wax — 'and administered it in a cup of water. 
The color was gorgeous and the cure immedi- 
ate. More demands for the wonderful red 
medicine resulted, and before long Wilcox 
was doing a thriving business in sealing wax. 
He ordered large quantities of it, for the profit 
was good. His fame spread. Then one day, 
being short of red, he unwittingly adminis- 
tered some green, never thinking that the 
color arose from Paris green or some such dele- 

129 



OH, SHOOT! 

terious drug. The effect, this time, was more 
than imaginary. None of the Indians actually 
died, but Wilcox tells me he has not been back 
to the San Bias coast for over ten years. 

Having, as we thought, sufficiently estab- 
lished our innocence of purpose, we broached 
the subject of a hunting trip to the mainland, 
but our proposal met with opposition. Cer- 
tain of the Colombian Indians objected, on 
the ground that we were doubtless looking for 
land, and it was not without much opposition 
that we were finally permitted to enter the 
forbidden territory back of the coast. 

To avoid the appearance of overrunning 
the neighborhood, Salisbury consented to 
spend the first day trolling in the river, while 
Billy Smith guided me through the jungle in 
quest of "mountain cow" — tapir. We were 
off at daylight, in the chief's cayuca, and al- 
though I covered many hot and breathless 
miles behind my guide, I returned tapirless. 
There is game in the country, lots of it. We 
were constantly on fresh signs of jaguar, deer, 
wild hog, and tapir; in places, the gloomy 
depths beneath the dense roof of leaves was 
trampled and tracked like a barnyard. 

Other trips followed, and on one of these, 
130 



THE SAN BLAS PEOPLE 

after much urging, we were shown the City of 
the Dead, the graveyard where lie the former 
residents of Cardi. It stands on the river 
bank far inland, a silent village of great 
thatched roofs. The floors sound hollow to 
the tread, for the dead are swung in ham- 
mocks, each in his empty vault, and the 
graves are set side by side. 

Billy assured us that we were the first white 
men to see this sanctuary. He made it plain, 
too, that he wished us to look and then to go, 
and the reason finally came out. 

"A bad thing happened here two days ago," 
said he . " We saw the devil . ' * 

"The devil?" 

"Yes." Billy pointed out the exact spot 
where the unwelcome visitor had made him- 
self visible. "He was a little fellow with a 
white shirt. We thought he was one of the 
boys from Cardi, but there was no cayitca on 
the bank, and when he saw us he ran quick 
into the woods. Plenty of people have seen 
the devil here." 

Naturally, I was interested. I assured 
Billy that, failing a tapir, I would be con- 
tent with a devil. I told him I was a fa- 
mous devil catcher and would guarantee to 

131 



OH, SHOOT! 

capture this one if he appeared, but my words 
evoked a smile. It was evident that Billy- 
considered me a braggart and a fool. He 
and the chief's son were vastly relieved when 
they had paddled us out of sight of the place. 

We fished the Cardi River and we hunted it; 
we followed withered old hunters armed with 
rusty shotguns into wildernesses and swamps 
whence none but an Indian with an Indian's 
bump of location could have guided us out; 
we perspired ourselves white in the humid, 
ovenlike heat, and we emerged covered with 
ticks as with a scale, for this was the dry 
season. Nothing was proof against this in- 
sect pest; every twig and every leaf contrib- 
uted its quota to our persons — the ticks got 
into our hair and our eyebrows; we spent 
hours "reading" our garments and each 
other's backs. 

They are wonderful travelers, these little 
men. We had great times with them, for, 
once they came to trust us, we put full trust 
in them, and they took us everywhere. It 
was great fun, too, still-hunting the largest 
and the wariest of tropical animals, matching 
wits with wild creatures whose every sense is 
sharpened to incredible acuteness. 

132 



THE SAN BLAS PEOPLE 

They were much interested in my electric 
headlight, and they took me fire hunting. 
To one who has never hunted a jungle stream 
at night the experience is worth while. To 
one who has there is a never-ending fascina- 
tion about it. The thickets conceal glowing 
eyes and the woods are full of strange noises — • 
rustling bodies, soft footsteps, the whir of 
wings, and the calls of wild creatures which 
speak only at night. It is unsportsmanlike, 
no doubt, but in a land of such dense cover 
there is sometimes no other way in which to 
get fresh meat. 

We supplied the village with fish, too, for 
the streams were choked with giant snappers, 
jacks, jewfish, tarpon, and the like. Our 
rods and reels, our slender lines and glittering 
spoons, amused the Indians at first, but when 
we came home with the launches heavy with 
fish and our backs aching from many a hard 
pull, they accorded us deep respect. 

It had been so easy to establish ourselves 
with the inhabitants of Cardi that we put little 
faith in the stories of San Bias hostility, but 
we proved them true when we journeyed 
farther down the coast. 

At River Diabolo, perhaps the largest and 
133 



OH, SHOOT! 

the most civilized of the towns, we found two 
missionary women, the only white people 
living in the nation. They had come at the 
invitation of the local chief, but their presence 
had excited much opposition and they had 
undergone many adventures. The one who 
had dwelt there longest told us of uprisings 
against her and of council meetings where her 
death or expulsion had been demanded. With 
that amazing singleness of purpose which 
animates the missionary mind, this little 
woman had stuck to her post, devoting one- 
third of her hours to teaching and two-thirds 
to preaching. Her scholars were eager to 
learn ; they followed her about, crying : "School ! 
School! School!" and allowed her scant 
leisure for her household duties. Women with 
babies on their hips sat beside immature chil- 
dren, droning their a-b-c's and singing psalms. 
With the arrival of the other missionary, the 
word of God had spread more rapidly, and 
when we sailed into River Diabolo with otu* 
flags flying we were met by ranks of Indian 
boys in clean white shirts and trousers, with 
faces scrubbed until they shone, and with 
hair plastered flat upon their foreheads. But 
garments were worn only during school 

134 



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i 


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B8| 






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jMjjg^lf 


1 






1 




m 


r^Hfi 




p 


- -^^^ 


^P 






^^ 



WE SPENT MUCH TIME ASHORE AND EASILY ESTABLISHED FRIENDLY 
RELATIONS WITH THE INHABITANTS 




A PRIMITIVE SAN BLAS CANE MILL 




OWING TO THEIR DIMINUTIVE SIZE, IT IS DIFFICULT TO DISTINGUISH THE 
WOMEN FROM THE GIRLS EXCEPT BY THEIR HAIR 



THE SAN BLAS PEOPLE 

hours — when out from under the eye of the 
missionaries they took their comfort. 

River Diabolo is the seat of culture, the 
home of refinement ; its citizens boasted loudly 
of its civilization, then sailed away to a chicha 
five miles below, where a shivering girl sat for 
three days on a hard-wood stool while the 
women poured sea water over her. 

There is little violence and a strict regard 
for the law among these people, but a few days 
before we arrived at this town a man, crazed 
by the rum he had drunk at a hair cutting, 
had stabbed another. His fellow townsmen 
had seized and imprisoned him; then, when 
his victim had recovered sufficiently, he was 
given a knife and compelled to stab his assail- 
ant. This eye-for-an-eye practice holds gen- 
erally, we were told. 

"Suppose one man kills another?" I 
inquired. 

My informant shrugged his shoulders. 

"We take him up the river." He waved 
towards the solid green of the forest. 

"And then?" 

"We give him poison," said he. "It is a 
good law." 

We were not welcomed everywhere. For 
135 



OH, SHOOT! 

instance, at Tigre, a little island hidden se- 
curely behind a maze of reefs, the inhabitants 
took to the woods at the rattle of otir anchor 
chains, and it was a long time before we could 
entice them back. Even then they would 
have little to do with us and much less with 
our cameras. The Wisdom was the first ship 
of size that had ever stopped at Tigre, and 
it was naturally a terrifying experience to 
them. 

After we had taken some three thousand 
feet of film, we discovered there was some- 
thing wrong with the Wisdom's stern bearing, 
which made a sound like that of a boy exer- 
cising his stilts on a tin roof, and having in 
mind a certain river on the Pacific side where 
the crocodiles are incredibly thick and very 
sizable, we turned homeward, stopping once 
more at Cardi for a final palaver with the chief 
and for some pictures of a tarpon drive. The 
tarpon were not running, however, so we 
missed filming a fleet of cayucas in a churning 
corral full of giant, leaping fish. The men 
strike them with harpoons, and the sight is 
worth seeing; it was one we had counted on, 
but some vagary had seized the savalo, and 
none was to be found. 

136 



THE SAN BLAS PEOPLE 

A great trouble had come upon the San 
Bias people, so the chief informed us. From 
Colon had come rumors which made them 
fear the government was about to deprive 
them of their land, the land which their 
fathers and their fathers' fathers had culti- 
vated from that day when the three wise men 
met the stranger who told them how to build 
a canoe that would sail against the wind. 
They were a peaceful people ; all they wanted 
was to be left alone. Surely the world was 
big enough to hold the white man; surely 
there were other lands than these. He was 
sorely distressed, was the chief, seeing much 
trouble ahead if intruders came. Some of 
the other chiefs had gone to interview the 
President, in Panama City, but had returned 
to say that the President could not, or would 
not, help them. The chief of Cardi wished 
our advice, and we gave it to him. We told 
him that the white man has a way of over- 
running the earth, but that he has laws as 
strict and stricter than the San Bias laws, and 
that these laws would protect the Indian as 
well as the white man if he took advantage 
of them. 

"Get a paper from the government," we 
137 



OH, SHOOT! 

counseled. "Get a paper which will give you 
title to your lands and to the plantations you 
have made; then let the white men come if 
they want to — you have no use for the jungle 
and the mountains yonder. It is no good to 
fight, for the white man will come — he always 
does, wherever the soil is rich and the trees are 
heavy with fruit and the waters are full of 
fish. It is his way." 

We promised to help the San Bias people 
get title to their lands, and we did what 
little we could, for they are good people, 
clean, healthy, moral, and God-fearing, and 
they had treated us well. They are the best 
Indians I have ever seen, and they would 
make good citizens of any country. How 
many there are I could not learn; some said 
ten thousand, some said twenty thousand — 
certainly there are enough of them to warrant 
consideration. 

All the San Bias people want are the coconut 
trees and the lands upon which their crops 
grow — not much, to be sure. But coconut 
groves are of slow growth ; those bottom lands 
are rich, and I have disquieting visions of ag- 
gressive, conscienceless exploiters, of a reser- 
vation, and of sick Indians. 

138 




THE CROCODILES ARE INCREDIBLY THICK AND VERY SIZABLE 



l^^^f^v VTjg 


i 




• J- ; 


w'^-\ '-2 





WE SUPPLIED THE VILLAGE WITH FISH, TOO, FOR THE STREAMS WERE 
CHOKED WITH GIANT SNAPPERS, JEWFISH, AND TARPON 




WE PUT FULL TRUST IN THESE LITTLE MEN WHOM WE FOLLOWED 
INTO WILDERNESSES AND SWAMPS 




WE FISHED THE CARDI KIVEK AND WE HUNTED IT 



THE SAN BLAS PEOPLE 

Panama is the youngest nation of the West- 
ern World. Has she the will or the desire to 
profit by the mistakes of her older neighbor to 
the north, or will she let the San Bias people 
fall a prey to those evil practices which 
destroyed the Indians of our plains? If she 
has that willingness, the opportunity for a 
humane act is hers, and the San Bias tribe 
will thrive; if not, it will doubtless disappear. 

Charlie Robinson, the chief of River Di- 
abolo, came to Colon to see me and thence out 
to the spillway where the tarpon were striking. 
To the music of the rushing waters of the 
Chagres and in the shadow of those great con- 
crete walls, he said, naively: 

"We are good people, only we don't know 
how to speak English. Tell us how to get our 
lands so that we may leave homes for our 
babies to live in. The President of Panama 
says he can't help us. Do you think the 
Americans can?" 

I wanted to reassure him, but I could 
not. 

As he went away he shook my hand and 
said: 

"You are our friend. You will come back 
some time, and we will be glad to see you." 
10 139 



OH, SHOOT! 

I hope I can go back, for I'd like to try those 
tapir once more. I'd Hke to smell the San 
Bias fires and see those bronze boys dancing 
to their pipes. Maybe, the next time, Billy 
Smith and I could catch that devil at the 
graveyard. Who knows? 



IV 

ON THE TRAIL OF THE COWARDLY 
COUGAR 

AMOVING picture was responsible for this 
trip. Photographically, the picture was 
nothing to brag about, but it had a punch, for 
it showed a certain Mr. "Btiffalo" Jones en- 
gaged in the flickery pastime of roping moun- 
tain lions. Fred Stone and I saw the picture 
and heard Mr. Jones's explanatory lecture 
regarding it at the Sportsman's Show. When 
the lecturer assured us that, despite the lion's 
apparent ferocity, he is in reality a timid, 
craven creature, and when he backed up this 
assertion by substantial celluloid proof, we, 
Fred and I, decided that here was a mild sort 
of adventure, well calculated to appeal to a 
couple of nervous sportsmen like us. 

Like most hunters, we had heard shuddery 
cougar stories from untruthful guides and we 
considered the animals big game, but we had 
never met one in the flesh south of the Bronx. 

x4z 



OH, SHOOT! 

In consequence, we were for some time at a 
loss just where to go cougar hunting. But 
one day we met and held converse with Am- 
brose Means, a Western cow gentleman, bron- 
cho buster, and showman. Mr. Means had 
been a member of two African expeditions, 
had roped wild lions, rhinoceri, water buffa- 
loes, wart hogs, and such other veldt animals 
as are possessed of legs, horns, humps, warts, 
and other physical deformities or facial blem- 
ishes over which he could cast a loop. 

At the time of our meeting he was engaged, 
for hire, in the business of leading tenderfeet 
into the wilds of Arizona and guiding them 
out, and he assured us that a kindly fate had 
sent us to him. When we confessed our burn- 
ing desire to sit for our portraits with as many 
cougars as could be assembled, he declared 
that he was the very man to ease our pain. 

"I'm your huckleberry!" said he. "The 
north side of the Grand Cafion, where I hunt, 
is all littered up with lions. They're a public 
nuisance, or they would be if there was any 
public, which there ain't. Uncle Jim Owen, 
my pardner, has been a government hunter 
and has killed over six hundred, himself, right 
there, He was with Jones when he got those 

H2 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

pictures; he had Roosevelt once. He owns 
the best lion dogs in the country, and him and 
I will give you a trip you'll remember." 

Looking Mr. Means squarely in the eye, I 
said, significantly: 

"We want to remember the trip, but we 
want to remember it pleasantly. What sort 
of a trip will it be?" 

"Easy — a perfect cinch." 

"Any danger?" 

"Not a bit. Why, you can take your wives 
along." 

Now Mr. Means had nevermet our respective 
families, which thus explains his inaccuracy. 

"There was a time," I cautioned him, 
"when work didn't come hard enough to suit 
me, when a certain sense of personal peril 
gave me a pleasurable thrill, when I could 
dance all night in rubber boots and a mack- 
inaw coat and never turn a hair. But city 
life softens a man. The time has come when 
I shudder at a callous. I jump through a 
plate-glass window when a car back-fires, and 
a single fox trot leaves me panting like a 
lizard. I have outlived hardships; I loathe 
exposure; I love hammocks, rich food, and 
debilitating luxuries — " 

143 



OH, SHOOT! 

"The grub will be fine — cleave that to me," 
Mr. Means broke in, but I checked him, 
saying: 

"Understand, Fred is an actor, and there- 
fore he owes it to himself to safeguard his per- 
sonal appearance. For instance, if a lion 
should bite, hook, or kick him in the face, he'd 
have to play the part of a German duelist, 
and, under present conditions, such a role 
couldn't be made sympathetic. What I would 
like to be perfectly certain of, before we go 
farther—" 

"Why, a cougar is scared of his own 
shadow," Ambrose said, positively. "Of 
course, if one licked your hand, it 'd scratch, 
because his tongue's rough. But they're 
gentle as dogs — they got good hearts — and 
this trip is just what you boys need. It '11 
rest you and tone you up. You bring a 
camera and an operator, and I'll attend to the 
other arrangements. We'll sure have one 
time ! And we'll rope cougars till we're plumb 
tired." 

Here, at the start, arose a question. Fred, 
of course, is an expert roper — he can eat 
noodles with a lariat — ^and Means had demon- 
strated his ability to rope, throw, and hog-tie 

144 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

anything from a horned toad to a tornado. 
But as for me, I am no loop hound — I couldn't 
rope a stack of elk horns — hence the problem 
was just how and where I fitted into the 
expedition. 

"I'll tell you what," Ambrose finally sug- 
gested. "Fred and I'll do the roping, and you 
can be the gunman. Of course, a cougar is a 
coward and a quitter, all right, but if I go up 
a tree to tie a hemp four-in-hand under his 
chin, I want to be able to look down into the 
face of a friend with a thirty- thirty." 

Fred allowed that such would doubtless be 
his own feelings under similar circumstances. 
He declared, too, that the presence of an 
armed escort would probably quiet the cam- 
era man's nerves. Camera men are notorious 
cowards, so he said. 

I was prompt in my statement that if this 
enterprise threatened to become a competition 
in cowardice, I was eager to enter, and so, 
after a deal of discussion, it was arranged that 
I should go along as a sort of protective 
measure. Even then Ambrose was not alto- 
gether easy in his mind, for he said: 

"I've seen fellers miss 'em cold. There 
won't be no time to pin a target on the lion's 

145 



OH, SHOOT! 

chest, you understand. If you shoot one of us, 
he'll get away." 

"Spoil the picture, too," Fred declared. 

I agreed that the point was well taken ; then 
I argued, reasonably enough, that if I became 
so nervous as to miss the cougar entirely, I 
would doubtless miss either or both of the 
ropers as well and no harm would be done. 
If, on the other hand, but one man climbed the 
tree, instead of two, that in itself would re- 
duce the risk 50 per cent — a simple problem 
in subtraction. Anyhow, I asserted, people 
who capture wild animals should expect to run 
some risks. 

So much, then, for the why and the where- 
fore of this expedition, the detail, the disap- 
pointment, and the drama of which I have set 
out to narrate in a simple, conservative, and 
shameless fashion. 

Ambrose met us on the date set, when we 
stepped off the train at Grand Canon, Arizona, 
and, for our part, we displayed to him a 
camera man who, we had been assured, would 
stand without being hitched. This camera 
man had never taken any wild-animal pic- 
tures; he had never been west of Newark, in 
fact, but he had recently photographed several 

146 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

"movie" serials with famous female stars, and 
he looked forward with relief to meeting a 
cougar. In addition to him, our party had 
grown to include Fred's brother and a tired 
business man from Chicago, both of whom 
had come along to see if we were really in 
earnest. 

As a matter of fact, I was not. I had no 
more intention of roping a lion than had they, 
it being my desire to act purely in the capacity 
of a dispassionate witness. Likewise, I had 
my doubts about Fred. 

"We can't cross here, like I planned," Am- 
brose announced. "There's too much water 
in Bright Angel Creek, so we'll go down the 
Bass Trail, twenty-five miles west. Uncle 
Jim's waiting on the other side with the dogs. 
Now then, shed your parade clothes and get 
into something decent. I'm r'arin' to go." 

None of our party had seen the Grand 
Spasm of the Colorado. We had heard it 
highly spoken of, to be sure, but not until we 
strolled out in front of the El Tovar and the 
thing hit us in the eye did we begin to appre- 
ciate what sort of a job we had put upon our- 
selves — what it means to cross that amazing 
rift in the earth's surface. Without any exag- 

147 



OH, SHOOT! 

gerated attempt at praise, without any hys- 
terical effort to eulogize, I may say that it is 
some chasm, and we thought well of it. As 
chasms go, it's a bear. Personally, I don't 
like chasms — ^they're hollow and they're un- 
safe. In looking at a landscape, I prefer to 
see space occupied by tangible scenery of some 
sort; here was an appalling nothingness, a 
complete minus of everything except air, and 
one had to look too far down, too far across, 
to see anything. Nor do I wish to appear 
hypercritical, a fault common to so many New 
Yorkers, but honesty compels me to say there 
is nothing in the least homelike or cozy about 
the Grand Cafion, and it is utterly devoid of 
even the simplest comforts. To anyone ac- 
customed to mountains that stick up, there is 
something odd, something distressingly un- 
usual, about looking down upon a whole system 
of towering peaks. Those mountains you see 
below your feet are good sizable mountains 
and nothing to be ashamed of — in fact, we'd 
be proud to claim them in the East, just to 
show up some of our old favorites — but Ari- 
zona hides them away in a hole! And cliffs! 
You can look in every direction and see any 
number of fine, imposing cliffs — wasted. It is 

148 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

criminal extravagance, and something should 
be done about it. 

Facing us, from twelve to twenty miles 
distant as the crow would fly if he had the 
nerve to tackle such a flight, stood the North 
Wall, our destination and the home of the 
cowardly cougar we had come to humiliate. 
It appeared to be a level mesa, somewhat 
higher than the seven-thousand-foot plateau 
where we were. That mesa deserves a word 
of description, for although vast numbers of 
tourists annually gaze upon it, although last 
year a good many thousand people descended 
Bright Angel Trail as far as the river, very few 
indeed have gone beyond and essayed the 
diflicult ascent of the other side. 

The country immediately north of the 
Cafion is a veritable wilderness and as inac- 
cessible as any you will be likely to find. It 
is covered by a magnificent forest and a gov- 
ernment restriction against hunting, trapping, 
plural marriages, and other primitive pas- 
times, all of which are more or less honored in 
the breach, especially by local Mormons. It is 
guarded from trespassers on the south by the 
titanic, mile-deep void, formed as a conse- 
quence of the unprecedented behavior of the 

149 



OH, SHOOT! 

Colorado River. The river itself, by the way, 
is crossable in a length of over two hundred 
miles in but two places, and there only by the 
assistance of slender wire cables, totally un- 
suited to the average nervous temperament; 
hence there isn't much crowding from this 
direction. Toward the north, one may travel 
some hundreds of miles before striking a rail- 
road ; and to the east and west there is a lot of 
unimproved, vacant property, peopled mainly 
by tribes of warlike North American aborigines 
engaged in the manufacture of baskets, blan- 
kets, beadwork, and prehistoric pottery for 
Fred Harvey's line of curio stores. Frightfiil 
tales are told of Indian atrocities in these parts, 
and I know they are true, for I bought several. 
This north bank of the Cafion is in reality 
the backbone of the Buckskins — 'mountains 
which are aptly named, for every buck abo- 
rigine with whom I dickered for a genu- 
ine Hartford, Connecticut, Navajo blanket 
skinned me. However, it is an interesting if 
deceptive country; although it appears to be 
as level as a floor, in reality it is rent by 
ravines, cracked by canons, and pitted with 
potholes — altogether quite the place a moun- 
tain lion would select for a residence. 

150 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

The complexion of our outing, by the way, 
began to alter immediately after our first 
glimpse of the Cafion. Doubts began to rise 
in our minds as to whether we were, after all, 
precisely the men for this undertaking. These 
doubts were intensified when, as a matter of 
precaution, Louis looked up in the hotel ency- 
clopedia a description of the animal we had 
come to capture. What he found caused us 
to question the complete frankness of Mr. 
"Buffalo" Jones's report to us, for it read in 
part: 

The cougar, or puma, is ordinarily a cowardly animal, 
but when wounded or brought to bay it is dangerous. It 
is entirely silent. Etc. 

It seemed that we had been deceived. Mr. 
Jones had not dealt fairly with us, and Am- 
brose Means — well, he had probably never 
read an encyclopedia with care. The ques- 
tion arose, therefore, whether we should 
satisfy our longing for adventure by a sight- 
seeing trip on a buckboard and retiu^n to face 
our respective and expectant wives, or whether 
we should go on across the Cafion and risk the 
lions. When the matter was put in this light, 
not one man wavered. A lion at bay is not a 
pleasant neighbor, but, for that matter, neither 

151 



OH, SHOOT! 

is a disappointed and sarcastic wife. We 
knew our wives, but we didn't know those 
lions ; therefore we proceeded with our prepa- 
rations. After careful debate it seemed to us 
that by the exercise of some caution we could 
probably avoid wounding our prey, no matter 
how sensitive he should prove ; as for bringing 
him to bay, as for cornering him where he 
would have to sell his life dearly, such, we 
agreed, was no part of our program. Lions are 
God's creatures; they have a right to live. 
The news that they are silent was, on the 
whole, welcome, for we reasoned that, if worse 
came to the worst, they could be depended 
upon to say nothing and we could drop the 
matter at any time. 

We "went over the rim" from Bass's Camp 
the next morning, and Mr. Bass, himself a 
young man of some sixty-odd years, accom- 
panied us for the exercise of climbing down 
into the Cafion and out again. 

Mr. Bass was sent West by the doctors 
thirty-five years ago to die of tuberculosis, 
but the Arizona climate has foiled his every 
effort to carry out instructions and he remains 
a disappointment to those few physicians who 
survive him. He is, accidentally, a geologist ; 

152 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

incidentally, he is a poet, a minstrel who sings 
of the open road, the wind, and the sunshine. 
Providentially, he is a liveryman, and it was 
his burro train which carried our motion- 
picture camera, cigars, smoking tobacco, ciga- 
rettes, pipes, golf clubs, and various articles 
of impedimenta. Yes, we had brought golf 
clubs. Louis was not satisfied with his ' ' long ' ' 
game ; it was his ambition to execute a four- 
hundred-yard drive, and he had figured that 
by teeing up on the edge of some precipitous 
bluff he could realize his life's dream. But, 
alas! he was doomed to disappointment, for 
Fate intervened in her characteristic manner. 
On the night of our arrival, when we built 
our signal fire to notify Uncle Jim that we 
were ready to "go over," Louis had com- 
plained of the altitude. He spent a bad night, 
and in the morning he felt worse. His pulse 
was behaving erratically and he displayed all 
the symptoms of mountain sickness. Al- 
though he insisted upon making the start 
with us, we were forced to send him back 
after an hour or more. We acted wisely, as 
it transpired, for he was certainly in no phys- 
ical condition to stand the hard, high climbing 
which we later encountered. Gloom settled 

153 



OH, SHOOT! 

upon us at losing our friend, for not only did 
his absence promise to increase the per-capita 
risk for the rest of us, if risk there should prove 
to be, but in his outfit there were several 
boxes of the largest, most expensive cigars we 
had ever beheld at close range. To be de- 
prived of both him and them caused us honest 
grief. However, we made the best of an un- 
fortunate business, bade Louis a heartfelt 
farewell in which the apprehensive quavers of 
our voices matched the regretful tremor in his, 
and that night we frisked his baggage for those 
Havanas. 

Mr. Bass is proud of his little trail, and 
during the long, arduous descent thereof he 
referred fondly to it more than once. He 
told us how an Indian had shown it to him, 
and although I listened courteously, it was 
my private belief that said Indian might have 
found better use for his time. I pretended to 
echo Mr. Bass's words of praise, but in reality 
my heart was black and my tongue was forked, 
this being a quaint Supai figure of speech 
meaning that I was stalling. In reality, I con- 
sidered it the worst thing in the shape of a 
road, route, right of way, or public easement 
which I had ever clung to. In the first place, 

IS4 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

it was about as wide as a rut or a bicycle 
track, and it showed plainly that the copper- 
skinned brave who laid it out wore an A A last. 
The worst feature about the trail, however, 
was that it had only one side, and that side 
was forever trying to shove us off. Where 
the other side should have been there was 
invariably a void, some yawning cavity with a 
lot of repulsive scenery at the bottom. I am 
at home in oblique countries, but this was my 
first experience in the land of the perpendicu- 
lar, and it taught me something. 

For instance, I never knew that a horse is a 
lopsided animal, and that it can walk with its 
feet on a ledge while its entire body projects 
over an adjoining gorge. Nor did I know how 
the ancient cliff dwellers built their fires. It 
was not by rubbing sticks together, as has been 
claimed; it was by striking bones, one upon 
the other. This I discovered when, out of 
consideration for my tired mount, I got off and 
shinned round the edge of a cliff upon what 
seemed to be a poor imitation of a rain-gutter. 
Pausing to admire the wondrous panorama 
outspread below me and to change my grip 
from a thorn bush to a cactus, I noticed, first, 
that the outline of my legs was indistinct, like 
11 ^55 



OH, SHOOT! 

a blurred photograph, then that my kneecaps 
were striking sparks, like a flint and steel. 

But all things are comparative; no matter 
how sick we are, we can always get worse. 
When I recrossed the Canon, three weeks later, 
when I clambered down off the north rim and 
struck the Bass Trail up the south side, it 
looked like Broadway. 

That first night we camped among some 
bowlders near a spring, and winged Zulus 
assagaied us. No tourists had passed this 
way in a long time, and those mosquitoes were 
on their last legs, but we saved them. It was 
hot; there was sand in the butter; there were 
rocks under our blankets; our cigars were 
broken and were becoming dried out. How- 
ever, we bore these hardships stoically and 
looked forward to the time when we would 
romp about in the exhilarating ozone of the 
Kaibab Plateau, engaging the cougar in its 
native sports and pastimes. 

Bass's Ferry consists of four spidery wires 
spanning the gorge of the Colorado. From 
these wires is suspended a rickety wooden 
cage which works with a windlass. It is a 
sort of magnified cash conveyer, and by means 
of it we set about crossing our horses and out- 

156 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

fit early the following morning. Inasmuch as 
there appeared to be an unvoiced question as 
to whether the contraption would carry a 
horse, we set up the camera in the hope of 
getting a good picture in case it wouldn't. 

This was a splendid setting for a moving- 
picture calamity, for the cables extend from 
one bleak, black wall to another, and seventy- 
five feet below them the river rushes past, 
breaking up a short distance downstream into 
a picturesque cataract. 

When the first horse descended to the niche 
which forms the cage landing and got a peek 
at the river below, he shook his head, folded 
his arms, crossed his feet, and sat down. 

"Women and children first," he plainly 
said. 

You may not know that a horse's neck is of 
elastic construction and will stretch like the 
coil of lemon peel in that beverage from which 
his neck derives its name ; but such is the case. 
We stretched this animal's neck to the size of 
a garden hose; we tied granny knots in his 
tail, and then, more in sorrow than anger, we 
took him in our arms, carried him into the 
cage, tied him securely, and barred him in with 
pieces of plank. This done, there followed a 

157 



OH, SHOOT! 

call for volunteers to windlass the burden 
across, thus ascertaining if the cables would 
stand the strain. 

It was Ambrose and Bert Lauzon who finally 
manned the windlass, cast off, and went flying 
down the wires. 

These wires sag considerably; hence the 
start of their journey was swift. Perhaps a 
third of the way across, the car came to a 
pause, whereupon the boys set about winding 
it slowly onward and upward by main strength 
and awkwardness. 

Miller, the operator, was frankly disap- 
pointed when nothing gave way. When the 
cage went bobbing and creaking onward, a 
foot at a time, he quit turning the camera 
crank and seated himself dejectedly, with his 
legs hanging over the gorge. Near him was a 
high pinnacle of rock round the base of which 
the river foamed; sizing it up, he announced 
that he could get a good picture if Fred would 
ascend it and do some fancy roping at the top. 
Evidently it was a matter of complete in- 
difference to him who supplied the thrills on 
this trip, who fell "in, so long as he got it, but 
we dared not risk offending him thus early in 
the game, so we boosted Fred up to the peak 

158 




THAT FIRST NIGHT WE CAMPED AMONG SOME BOWLDERS NEAR A SPRING 




IT WAS HOT, AND THERE WAS SAND IN THE BUTTER 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

of the rock, where he balanced dizzily, whirling 
his lariat until Miller again stopped the ma- 
chine, saying he guessed it was no use. 

We lost our third horse. He went into the 
cage more easily than the first two, and there- 
fore less care was taken in tying him close. 
Just before the start he began to plunge and, 
in a sudden frenzy of terror, he managed, as a 
result of our carelessness, to get partially over 
the bars in front of him and fetch up, head 
down, in which position he threatened to 
strangle, for the ropes at his neck, although 
they prevented him from sliding out of the 
open end of the cage, also shut off his wind. 

Lauzon leaped to the rescue, but the ani- 
mal's struggles broke the cage loose from its 
moorings and it shot out from the landing. 
Bert was as quick to appreciate the perils of 
an aerial trip in a cage with a struggling horse 
as were we, and even as we yelled at him to 
jump he quitted the car. Immediately below 
him was a steep slope of broken rock, the foot 
of which was swept by the rushing river. Out 
over this, man, horse, and car had begun their 
trip. Bert landed on a thin knife edge of 
rock, slipped, but caught himself with his 
hands, steadied himself, and climbed back to 

159 



OH, SHOOT! 

us. The cage had come to rest a short dis- 
tance out and the horse was threatening to 
demoHsh it in his dying struggles. 

"He's done for," said Bert. "He'll choke 
before we can shin out there and windlass the 
cage back." 

" Shall I cut him down? " inquired one of the 
boys. 

Plainly that was the quickest way of ending 
the creature's agony, so the suggestion was 
acted upon. 

As the first rope was cut, the horse, in a final 
spasm, kicked himself free of the bars, slid 
head first out of the tip-tilted cage, and hanged 
liimself high in midair over the torrent. 

We were all very much relieved when he 
had been cut down, when the cage failed to 
follow him, and when the entire transaction 
was closed. These events had not taken 
long, and we had quite forgotten Miller and 
his machine, which he had been industriously 
turning. Now he called down to us: 

"Good work! But the censors won't pass 

it. I got everything except the leap for 

life. If you'll start the cage again and let 

Bert make another jump, I'll get him in the 

air." 

1 60 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

We realized that we had with us a good 
operator. 

When we had sent our last horse over, had 
loaded our outfit, and were ready to step into 
the car, Mr. Bass's party bade us farewell. 
The simple earnestness of their assurances that 
it had indeed pleased them to know us, even 
thus briefly, was depressing. Their sincerity 
seemed to argue that they feared the pleasure 
would not be renewed and that they expected 
to know us henceforth only in memory — ■ 
which, in view of our immediate surroundings, 
we ourselves had begun to fear. 

To anyone suffering from ennui, I can 
recommend as a cure a trip across the gorge of 
the Colorado River on a wire cable. The view 
is fine, and it extends in all directions, espe- 
cially up and down. I know now that I would 
never care for flying. As we dangled 'twixt 
wind and water, and the cage sprang up and 
down while the whole rigging gave and took 
with sundry alarming groans and warnings, 
we stared hypnotically at the river below us 
and vowed that already this Arizona country 
had made better men of us. 

In answer to our signal fire. Uncle Jim had 
sent two cowboys to meet us and, once across 

i6i 



OH, SHOOT! 

the river, they helped us to repack and re- 
saddle the horses we had brought, together with 
some others which Uncle Jim had sent by them. 
They bore us the glad tidings that the trail up 
was a "heller," and that Shinumo Creek, along 
which it led for a way, was so high that, in com- 
ing down, their horses had been swept away 
and they had lost most of their grub. 

But interest did not wait until we arrived 
at the Shinumo. En route thereto, over a 
bold and frowning ridge which separated us 
from that brawling stream, one of our pack 
horses was seized with a bilious attack of 
vertigo and made a scene. He it was upon 
whose back we had lashed our moving-picture 
camera, all of the cigars, cigarettes, plug and 
pipe tobacco, cigarette papers, pipe cleaners, 
and the like, and he it was who occupied the 
place of honor in our caravan. The trail was 
a sick affair at best. It writhed in agony; it 
zigged painfully upward for a short distance, 
then changed its mind and zagged back again. 
This it repeated over and over. 

When the camera horse had selected a place 
too steep and too narrow for us to turn around 
in, he let go, flung himself into our arms, say- 
ing, " Take me as I am ! " 

162 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

It is no part of a restful vacation to dig your 
hobnails into solid rock, hold a hysterical 
horse against the side of a precipice while you 
unload, resurrect, and repack him. To suc- 
cessfully perform the feat one should be deaf, 
dumb, and blind to outside impressions, and 
he should possess as many legs as a spider and 
as many arms as an octopus. We were quite 
ready to camp when we finally arrived at the 
Shinumo. 

The Shinumo occupies a high-sided cafion, 
through which it dashes in a spirited fashion, 
regardless of the comfort of travelers. The 
melting snows had raised it and had turned it 
to a milky whiteness. We negotiated our 
first ford at no greater cost than a partial 
wetting and a total paralysis of mind and 
body. Neither Paul nor Miller, the operator, 
could swim, so precautions were taken. The 
loop of a lariat was placed about the neck of 
each, it being Ambrose's ingenious idea that if 
the horses were carried away, he could haul the 
riders to safety and at the same time prevent 
getting any water into their lungs. 

Our optimism increased when the second 
crossing had been effected without casualty, 
but as we made ready for the third and last 

163 



OH, SHOOT! 

adventure, Pat, who was in the lead, warned us 
to follow in his tracks as nearly as possible. 

"The creek runs over a ledge here," he 
explained. "But you'll go through safe 
enough if you stay on it. If you don't stay on 
it, you'll drop off below and wet yourself and 
all your fixtures." 

"Lead your ace!" we quavered, above the 
tiumoil of rushing waters. 

Pat spurred his horse in, and, after a breath- 
less period of uncertainty, he emerged upon the 
opposite side, giving voice to a shrill yell of 
triumph and encouragement. He had carried 
in his hand a long lead rope, made fast to the 
camera horse. The animal had less success 
with its endeavor. When the water foamed 
about its belly, it stumbled, lost its footing, 
slipped, and staggered downstream for a few 
feet, then tore the halter out of Pat's grasp and 
was washed away. 

"There goes the machine!" cried Miller. 

"And a thousand feet of film!" Fred 
groaned. 

"And all our cigars!" I wailed. 

We were frozen with horror, but Bill 
Vaughan seized a rope, and, with loop whirling 
above his head, went loping down the bank 

164 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

abreast of the U-horse. Now its head ap- 
peared, now its belly; again the white pack 
cover came into view. Bill made a cast, lost 
his slippery footing, and fell into the stream, 
whereupon, to quote that immortal lyric 
dealing with the fatal adventures of Ten 
Little Indians, "there were two." 

Ambrose had remained upon the opposite 
bank. Fortunately snough, he had retained 
his lariat — trust your cowman to keep his 
tobacco and his rope handy. By the time we 
had unlimbered oiu* still cameras, he, too, was 
endeavoring to save the unfortunate beast. 
But the current foiled him; it swept his loop 
off time after time, until, at last, the horse 
turned its head upstream, whereupon he 
made a perfect catch, sat back on his haunches, 
and was dragged stiff-legged over the rocks, 
like the anchor of an airship. He took a 
dally around a small quaking-asp near the 
water's edge, and, although the tree came out 
by the roots, the horse came to rest under a 
steep bank. Just below was a nasty chute, 
which would have been its undoing had it 
failed to end its journey at this point. 

"I've got him," Ambrose yelled, "and he*s 
a dandy!" 

i6s 



OH, SHOOT! 

It was quite as exciting as shark fishing — ■ 
while it lasted. Thus far, the horse was little 
the worse for its ducking, but it had experi- 
enced quite enough of this sort of thing and 
refused to help itself. The lariat was slowly 
choking it, which made it necessary to salvage 
quickly the submerged pack — no easy task in 
ice water waist-deep. Eventually, however, 
it was unloaded, and with the aid of two other 
horses the animal was dragged and rolled up 
the bank to safety. 

Our brand-new "movie" camera did not 
leak light, but it leaked water when we held 
it up. It leaked like a defective samovar, and 
that thousand feet of film resembled some sort 
of gelatinous breakfast food. But those aro- 
matic Havanas! They presented a heart- 
rending sight to us weak nicotine lovers. We 
sat down and wept silently into our beards, 
casting sand upon our unhappy heads. You 
can wipe the moisture out of an aluminum 
camera; you can get along without taking 
pictures, if you have to, but a man must 
smoke, and who — ^who can smoke wet cigars 
and survive? We were strong men — we were 
made of stern stuff, but there is a limit to 
human endurance. Ambrose's joyous an- 

i66 




THE BOYS SET ABOUT WINDING IT SLOWXY ONWARD AND UPWARD BY MAIN 
STRENGTH AND AWKWARDNESS 




THE HORSE KICKED HIMSELF FREE OF THE BARS AND HANGED HIMSELF 

IN MID-AIR 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

nouncement that "This is the life, boys! 
Nothing to do but eat, sleep, and ride a horse ! " 
fell upon unheeding ears. It was a ghastly 
failure as an effort to cheer. 

We got safely across the Shinumo — we must 
have done so, for I am here — but the memory 
of how it was accomplished is lost in the black 
shadows of forgetfulness. We were dumb, 
suffering, spiritless creatures. Doubtless those 
unfeeling cowboys tied their ropes in our 
collars and towed us across, hand over hand, 
as they towed Red, the visiting hound dog 
whom they were taking along as an addition 
to Uncle Jim's pack. I don't know. 

After leaving the Shinumo, the scenery be- 
comes more arresting, and so does the trail. 
Whoever is responsible for either or both 
tried to show off, and succeeded. In one 
place, as we dug our heels into a ledge 
and supported the weight of an overhang- 
ing cliff upon our shoulders, Fred exclaimed, 
mournfully: 

"Gee! I'm sorry the camera is wet! This 
would make a great picture." 

Paul's eyes were closed, but he was not 
sleeping. 

"It would, indeed," he declared, with feeling, 
167 



OH, SHOOT! 

"and I'd like to be in a plush orchestra seat, 
looking at it." 

Paul has a simple, clear way of putting 
things. Had I dared to let go of anything I 
would have gripped his hand. 

While the Grand Canon, as I have stated, 
is mostly perpendicular, there are certain 
slopes, reputed to be the result of erosion. 
Such is not the reason of their being — 'they 
are the result of pressure from visiting tourists 
who, in terror, have shoved them out of plumb. 

It began to rain early in the afternoon, and 
inasmuch as our grass-fed horses were weak, 
this being the third day they had been prac- 
tically without food, we failed to "top out" 
that night. When darkness came we spread 
our fly in a thorny thicket and Pat molded 
a set of death balls, which he case-hardened in 
the Dutch oven. We had no baking-powder 
— the Shinumo had seen to that — but minor 
discomforts were forgotten in the cheerful 
thought that each of us was all here. Having 
escaped destruction thus far, we began to feel 
hopeful that we could avoid coming to close 
quarters with the cowardly cougar. In fact, 
we began to dare to hope that we would not 
even see one. 

i68 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

Hunger and apprehension somewhat re- 
lieved, we crept into our wet blankets, only 
to hear our guides engaged in a heated argu- 
ment regarding hydrophobia skunks. 

"Pshaw! There's not a bit of danger in a 
place like this," Ambrose was saying. 

"Um-m! Prob'ly not; but it's just the 
kind of a night for 'em," Pat declared. "Re- 
member that one that got in bed with me on 
the last trip?" 

Bill Vaughan seemed to recall the incident 
clearly, for he said: 

"I sure thought you was a dead ox that 
time, Pat. By the way, that feller at Fre- 
donia that was bit in his sleep, hydrophobiated 
last week. He was foamin' like a sody foun- 
tain when I left. I'd rather have a rattler in 
my blankets." 

"I'm used to 'em," Ambrose yawned, "and, 
anyhow, they don't touch me." 

Undoubtedly this Arizona lion roping was 
great sport. We knew we were going to 
enjoy it — ^if we lived. 

" Climb a wagon wheel, stranger! I'm about 
to turn these son of a guns in." 

It was Pat's voice calling us; it was his way 
169 



OH, SHOOT! 

of announcing that breakfast was served. 
Rain was still falling; the bushes were wet 
and the rim of the plateau, far above, was 
obscured by clouds. 

We uncovered no hydrophobia skunks when 
we turned back our blankets; none of us had 
been bitten during the night. A hurried trip 
to the creek, and we were ready for the worst 
that Pat had to offer. 

As we cracked our vitrified, sour-dough 
door knobs and sipped our tin demi-tasses, I 
inquired of him: 

"What do you mean by inviting us to climb 
a wagon wheel?" 

"It's just a habit I got Into when I was 
cooking for a cow outfit in New Mexico," Pat 
explained. ' ' Those old boys was rough eaters, 
and they thought well of their grub. One day 
an Eastern feller stopped at the chuck wagon 
for dinner — nice feller, he was, as nice a boy 
as ever I saw — but he happened to an accident. 
Our men came drifting in at meal time and 
ringed around the wagon, pawing the ground 
and clashing their horns and bellering for their 
feed. When It was all set, I yelled, ' Come and 
get it or I'll throw It out,' and — do you know? 
— those son of a guns like to tromped that poor 

170 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

stranger to death. Ever since then I always 
tell visitors to climb a wagon wheel." 

Our horses had fared badly during the 
night, for there was no grass hereabout; 
hence it was slow work threading our way up 
the canon. We had supposed that the worst 
of our climbing was over, but, as usual, we 
were mistaken. During the entire trip, I 
don't think we ever congratulated ourselves 
on any subject without discovering that we 
had been premature. Up we went on foot, 
creeping over bowlders, pawing our way 
through bramble and bush, and dragging our 
horses by their bridles, until we reached the 
white limestone cliff — -that tremendous ribbon 
of rock which bands the canon so prominently. 
Under this we worked our way along a narrow 
path which looks out over twenty miles of 
vacant space, until we emerged upon a narrow 
saddle connecting Powell's Plateau with the 
main mesa of the Buckskin Range. 

Powell's Plateau is an isolated table-land, 
an aerial isthmus; it stands forth boldly, like 
a gigantic layer cake, and round it the 
Colorado folds. Its sides fall away perpen- 
dicularly, except at the narrow neck which 
joins it to the North Wall; its top is covered 

12 171 



OH, SHOOT! 

with a parklike growth of magnificent pines. 
This was to be the scene of our adventures; 
here Uncle Jim had pitched camp and was 
awaiting us. From the stories we had heard, 
we expected to flush a covey of cougar at 
every step now, and so, bearing in mind that 
they take alarm easily, we made as much 
noise as possible and managed to avoid kicking 
any out of the grass. 

Uncle Jim keeps his horses on this plateau, 
under authority of a grazing permit from the 
government. In one respect at least it is an 
ideal location, for a quarter of a mile of log 
fence thrown across the saddle gives him a 
five-thousand-acre pasture, and the only way 
his stock can get out of that pasture is to fall 
out. His horses are of the self-raising variety, 
and they neither require nor tolerate any 
attention from outsiders. When he needs 
one he takes an early breakfast and a stout 
lariat, then rides through the woods until he 
discovers one which he fancies. Thereupon 
he lights out after it, and runs it twenty or 
thirty miles, or until it has to stop for re- 
freshment. With good luck, he pens it into 
a corral, and is thus enabled to get within 
roping distance. This accomplished, the real 

172 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

work sets in. Uncle Jim has spent thirty 
years in the Buckskins, and he hopes soon to 
have several of these horses broken to the 
saddle. 

A committee of about two dozen prominent 
mule-eared deer welcomed us when we stag- 
gered up over the rim proper and fell ex- 
hausted. They did everything except shake 
hands with us; then, like any reception com- 
mittee, they hurried away to attend to more 
interesting business. 

It was sleeting now, and inasmuch as we 
had brought nothing but light clothing — 
Arizona in May had sounded very tropical to 
us — our teeth chattered merrily. Uncle. Jim 
had started out for a mule load of snow, but, 
hearing the music of our ivory castanets 
ringing through the glades, he headed us off. 

"I thought you boys must 'a' had trouble," 
he said, when we told him about our delays at 
the Colorado and at the Shinumo. "Kind of 
a rough country till you get used to it. Now, 
you go on to camp and take a good rest before 
supper, while I hurry and get my snow; it's 
only about five miles. I'm all out of water, 
and there ain't a creek up here." 

But at the mention of food we whimpered 
173 



OH, SHOOT! 

so piteously that he turned back. We now 
guardedly brought up the subject of mountain 
Hons, only to receive Uncle Jim's enthusiastic 
assurance that the country was indeed full of 
them. Fortunately it was cold, and he did 
not notice that the chattering of our teeth 
increased. 

There is a lot of work wasted in camp life. 
Late that afternoon we hunted up the only 
remaining snowdrift on the plateau and 
packed in two hundred pounds of the cleanest 
of it. The next morning we awoke to find 
that it was snowing so heavily that there was 
enough water for cooking purposes right at 
hand — right in our blankets, as a matter of 
fact. It was useless to go after lions in such 
weather, so we spent the day getting ac- 
quainted with the dogs and dodging the smoke 
from a sputtering camp fire, the while Miller 
took the camera apart, dried it, and undertook 
to put it together again. It was quite an ex- 
hibition of sleight of hand, for he produced 
everything out of that box from a wreath of 
paper flowers to a live rabbit. When the ma- 
chine was reassembled he still had a hatful of 
superfluous parts. 

Uncle Jim Owen is a famous character and 
174 






i 




THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

much has been written about him, but, next 
to him, the most important and interesting 
member of our party was Pot-hound, the dean 
of the cougar pack. Pot is a sad-eyed old 
canine, a veteran of many battles. His every- 
day dress consists of a haphazard assortment 
of liver-and- white spots, but on state occasions 
he wears, in addition thereto, a silver-mounted 
collar upon which is engraved his name and 
address, together with the following epitaph: 

I have been at the killing of 450 lions. 

"Is that correct?" we inquired of Uncle 
Jim. 

"Um-m! not exactly," he told us. "It's 
nearer five hundred now. Old Pot will find 
cougar where there ain't any." 

Fred and I exchanged apprehensive glances. 
Every moment it looked more and more to us 
as if we were in for a meeting with a mountain 
lion in spite of an3rthing we might do. Nor 
could we poison the dog, for we had nothing 
with us more deadly than Epsom salts. 

Uncle Jim has lived alone with his dogs 
much of his time, and he has formed a habit of 
conversing with them upon intimate subjects. 
Flattered by our attentions, Pot-hound had 

175 



OH, SHOOT! 

edged nearer to the fire than etiquette per- 
mitted, so Uncle Jim pecked the veteran on the 
shins with his poker, saying, mildly : 

"Now, Pot, you get away from here, or I'll 
knock a yelp out of you as long as a well 
rope." Pot retired with a mournful dignity 
and seated himself with the rest of the pack. 
"He's a powerful good dog, but these boys 
have spoiled his manners," Uncle Jim apolo- 
gized. "Yes, he's a good dog. He saved 
my life once." We had already learned that 
Uncle Jim is parsimonious with his reminis- 
cences; therefore we maintained a polite but 
inquisitive silence. "I was hunting alone, for 
the government, one season, and my horse 
throwed me. Broke my right shoulder. One 
day Pot and another dog treed a lion, and I 
shot it left-handed. It fell like it was dead 
and went over a ledge, with them after it. I 
left my gun behind and went down to skin 
him out, but when I got below I found I'd 
only creased him. The dogs had him ledged 
up and he was as good as ever. When I 
showed up he made for me. He'd of got me, 
too, only they nailed him. Then we had it. 
We tore up a lot of ground. Every time the 
cougar went for me they'd go for him, and 

176 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

when he'd go for them I'd run in. I tried to 
kill him left-handed with a rock, but I didn't 
do very well at it. I was plumb tuckered out 
when a cowboy heard us rowin' down there and 
rode out to the rim. 

'"Shall I shoot?' he hollered. 

" We was all mixed up together, but I yelled 
back, 'Gosh, yes!' 

"He was all of three hundred yards above 
us, but he shot that cat right through the 
heart. Prettiest shot I ever saw. Then he 
put up his gun and rode away, and I never did 
know who he was. Funniest thing about it, 
he was the only man in those parts except me." 

Fred and Paul and I discussed this story 
later. 

"It beats the deuce how some people can 
He," one of us said, and the others agreed. 
We were not referring to Uncle Jim — his story, 
we knew, was true in every detail — we were 
thinking of "Buffalo" Jones. Roping moun- 
tain lions was a whole lot different to roping 
trunks. 

A word here regarding Uncle Jim's dogs. 
Not only are they his helpers, but also they are 
his friends, and he treats them as such. He 
feeds them well, no matter how scanty may 

177 



OH, SHOOT! 

be his own grub supply ; he sees to it that they 
have a tent and a bed as good or better than 
his. But while he is a considerate master, 
he is likewise a disciplinarian, and woe betide 
such impetuous members of the pack as, in a 
moment of abandon, take a deer track. Uncle 
Jim waits patiently until they return; then he 
dismounts, breaks off a stout limb, and cleans 
up. The welkin rings to his profane chidings, 
to their agonized excuses, and to a hollow 
drumming. Pot-hound never runs deer; he 
knows his business thoroughly, and when his 
younger colleagues take a false scent, he, too, 
sits down and awaits the inevitable reckoning. 
He enjoys that reckoning; it pleases him 
deeply, and he makes no secret of the fact. 
He is both satisfied and refreshed thereby, and 
he hunts better afterward. 

We were away early on the second morning, 
and before we had followed the rim for a mile 
our dogs gave tongue and set off under forced 
draught. After them we galloped through 
thick, low cedars, the stiff limbs of which invited 
us to tarry awhile. Dodging and ducking and 
twisting, we tried to keep abreast of the pack, 
and, in order that we might find our way back, 
we left rags of flannel shirting here and there. 

17S 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

We plowed through thickets, head down, eyes 
shut; we plunged into steep-sided gullies 
where our horses stood on their hands; then 
we dismounted and toiled out, our lungs 
bursting, our pores streaming. In the course 
of this mad chase, which lasted a couple of 
hours, we made extensive private collections 
of thorns, cactus spines, and Spanish daggers. 
By the time we had quilled ourselves over like 
fretful porcupines, the dogs had gotten entirely 
out of hearing, and Ambrose announced that it 
wasn't a lion, after all, but a coyote. Yes, Pot 
would sometimes take a coyote trail. Fred 
and I breathed easier. We got out of our 
saddles, rubbed our bruises, sucked our cuts, 
and dehorned ourselves. We agreed that it 
was a fine, free life, and very stimulating. 

A long time later, when the dogs returned 
one by one, they were eager to explain, but too 
tired to hunt further, so we returned to camp, 
greatly heartened by the realization that two 
uneventful days had stolen past, during which 
we had neither treed anything nor been treed 
by anything. 

In order that oitr method of hunting may 
be properly understood, it is necessary briefly 
to outline the habits and idiosyncrasies of our 

179 



OH, SHOOT! 

quarry. To begin with, the cougar is a night 
feeder. He spends his days in meditation, 
holed up under the rim in some convenient 
cave where he can enjoy the scenery of the 
canon, but at night he comes up, grabs himself 
a deer, and has a party. He is an extravagant 
diner, and he seldom eats more than the heart 
and lungs of his prey. Sometimes he covers 
his kill and returns the next night for a cold 
snack, but not always. In nearly every 
brushy draw that we explored we found the 
remains of these midnight supper parties, and 
Uncle Jim told us that a full-grown mountain 
lion will destroy annually perhaps two hun- 
dred deer, and not infrequently domestic 
stock as well. It is for this reason that the 
government and local cattlemen employ pro- 
fessional hunters and there is no closed season 
on cats. 

Our practice was to leave camp soon after 
daylight and rim the main and the larger side 
cafions until afternoon, when the sun had had 
time to dissipate the scent. Rarely indeed is 
a lion brought to bay on the level top of the 
plateau, for the dogs have to go over and rout 
him out of his sun parlor, and almost invari- 
ably he flees downward, not upward. It is 

i8o 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

the part of the hunter to follow wherever the 
chase leads, and, inasmuch as a cold trail may 
meander for many miles, in and out, up and 
down, even from one plateau to another and 
back again, it may be seen that the sport is 
not a languid one nor one well suited to weak- 
lunged sofa weevils. 

This section of Arizona in the early spring 
has its climatic shortcomings, but they are 
more than offset by the ever-growing wonder 
one feels at the stupendous gorge. It is im- 
possible to become accustomed to it, for it is 
never twice the same. To ride its edge be- 
hind a pack of dogs combined the sensations 
of hunting and of aviation. 

Ambrose had determined to give us a good 
time if it killed us, and, appreciating the worth 
of his intentions, we lacked courage to tell him 
that any animal which was forced to endure 
the sort of life he was leading us deserved to 
be let alone. Therefore, we followed him day 
after day. 

But it seemed that the lions had broken 
camp and had deserted Powell's Plateau, a 
phenomenon which neither Ambrose nor Uncle 
Jim could explain, so after we had covered it 
thoroughly we folded our tents like the Arabs 



OH, SHOOT! 

and stole noisily across to the main table-land. 
Anyone who has ever herded a pack train of 
wild horses will know why we did not steal 
silently. 

Here again we resumed our daily grind 
of pleasure until our saddle galls, brush 
cuts, stone bruises, and miscellaneous injuries 
clothed us like a garment. Such portions of 
us as were without pain caused us serious 
apprehension. 

Then, one morning, we became separated 
from Ambrose and the dogs. It was a warm, 
sunshiny morning. After we had whispered 
his name several times and after he had failed 
to answer, we decided we were lost. We were 
intensely cheered by this discovery, and we 
fell out of our saddles, stretched out on the 
pine needles, and proceeded to catch up on a 
lot of sleep which was coming to us. We slept 
for a long time, but at last we were awakened 
by distant shouting, which we recognized as 
issuing from Ambrose. Reluctantly we 
mounted and rode in the direction of his voice. 
Ambrose spied us at a distance and was seized 
with convulsions. He waved his arms; he 
leaped and he bounded; he gave utterance to 
hoarse sounds of pain and of fury. 

182 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

"Where have you boys been?" he de- 
manded, huskily. " I been hunting you for an 
hour and yelling my head off." 

"We were looking for you. We thought 
you were lost," some one told him. 

"Well, tumble out and unchap yourselves. 
Here's where we go over." For the first time 
we became aware of a faint baying far below 
us. "I jumped him on the edge, and the dogs 
took him right down," Ambrose explained. 
"They've had him bayed for an hour or two." 
While he was talking, he had whipped the 
pack ropes from the camera horse. We di- 
vested ourselves of coats, chaps, and all un- 
necessary clothing. "They can't hold him 
all day; he'll get cramps and have to jump 
sometime," Ambrose grumbled. "Next time 
we go out, I'm going to lead you boys on a 
hackamore." 

In view of the character of the descent 
ahead of us, we divided our load. Ambrose 
flung the chains and leather collar destined 
for our quarry into his rucksack; Fred took 
his lariats and some extra film cans; while 
Miller and Vaughan bore the camera and its 
heavy tripod. I, as gunman, carried my rifle 
and a small still camera. Thus we went over. 

183 



OH, SHOOT! 

The canon fell away at our feet, clear down 
to the red sandstone; then in dizzy leaps and 
bounds it caromed off to the level of the river 
a mile below. A horizontal mile isn't much 
in the way of distance, but a vertical mile 
is altogether different. To quote from any 
real-estate folder, "it must be seen to be 
appreciated." 

Down we went through the brush, like 
trapeze performers; then, with a lariat, we 
lowered ourselves and our paraphernalia over 
the first ledge. We dislodged a great deal of 
good building material as we hopped, skipped, 
and jumped down a bare slide; we started 
avalanches of paving blocks, crushed stone, 
and rubble, the larger pieces of which described 
beautiful parabolas and took out small trees 
in their courses. Occasionally they struck 
other large stones and exploded in clouds of 
dust. One could not but wonder how far he 
would ricochet if he lost his footing, and what 
kind of a sound he would make when he ex- 
ploded. We slid through slanting juniper 
thickets to an accompaniment of rending gar- 
ments; we coasted across patches of thorn 
brush with all the sensations of men toboggan- 
ing over barbed wire. And, as we went, the 

184 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

music of the hounds increased until the cliffs 
reverberated with it. We crept round the 
Roman nose of a steep bluff, filtered down 
through an abatis of gnarled cedars, and — 
Eureka! — there was our lion. 

She was a majestic creature, a big female; 
she was poised gracefully about twenty feet 
from the ground, and beneath her the dogs 
were boiling. She favored us with a grave 
and dignified stare, then resumed her obser- 
vation of the pack below. The mountain side 
was pitched at the angle of a church roof; 
nevertheless, it was exceedingly brushy, and 
so there was little opportunity for photog- 
raphy. I took several stills of her while we 
were waiting for Miller and Vaughan to appear 
with the moving-picture camera, but limbs 
obscured the view and the result was nothing 
to be proud of. 

"She won't stand much longer," Ambrose 
warned us. "Scatter out below, and be care- 
ful she don't jump on you." 

I, for one, was perfectly willing to exercise 
extreme care in this respect, and I ventured 
the suggestion that Ambrose direct his warning 
to her, not to us. 

When Miller arrived he was pretty badly 
185 



OH, SHOOT! 

battered and scratched, but the camera hadn't 
a mark on it. He set it up and took a few 
feet. 

"It's too thick to rope her from the ground," 
Fred declared. 

"Let me shoot her," I urged, but my sug- 
gestion was scorned. Both Fred and Ambrose 
assured me that this was a Hon-busting, not a 
lion-shooting exhibition. 

"She's all rested up. I dunno's she'll 
stand for us to climb the tree," Ambrose 
opined. "But we can try. Well, who wants 
to go first?" 

Honesty compels me to state that Ambrose's 
invitation presented no attractions for me. I 
dare say I could bring myself to rope a lion, 
a very young and playful lion with short 
claws and milk teeth, although I would much 
prefer to shake the tree and let it fall out, but 
this animal had fangs and tusks and wisdom 
teeth. Moreover, it had done nothing to me 
to warrant roping. Then, too, I reasoned, 
lions were scarce and there was no certainty 
that there would be enough to go around if I 
selfishly monopolized this one. Gently but 
firmly I declined the proffered honor. When 
the boys became insistent, I reminded them 

i86 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

that I had come along to protect them, to set 
them an example of calm, inflexible courage. 
This I intended to do if I had to stay where I 
was until my legs petrified or until the lioness 
died of old age on that limb. 

Doubtless my attitude in the matter shamed 
Fred, for he volunteered. 

"Wait a minute!" Miller broke in, with 
more animation than he had yet shown. "I 
want to get a close-up of this. This is going 
to be good! " He brought his outfit nearer the 
tree, spraddled out the legs of his tripod, then 
stood on his head while he focused with mi- 
nutest care. "I don't want to miss a thing," 
he explained. "Not a single thing except — • 
the noise of the fight. I want to get the blood 
and — everything. ' ' 

"Better hurry; she's getting restless," Am- 
brose urged. "I guess her foot's asleep." 

It was some distance to the lower branches 
of the cedar; therefore he gave Fred a hand 
up. Meanwhile, I reassured both of them 
with quotations from "Buffalo" Jones's lec- 
ture, also by the statement that no matter 
what happened, I would be somewhere in the 
vicinity. 

Our program did not work out according to 
13 187 



OH, SHOOT! 

calculations. Not at all. Fred got into the 
lower branches of the tree, but instead of re- 
treating, as lions are supposed to do, instead of 
recoiling in terror before the well-known power 
of the human eye, this one opened her mouth 
as if to get her throat sprayed and came down 
to show it to Fred. She came with a rush, 
too. 

"Look out!" Ambrose yelled, whereupon 
Fred peeled the lower part of that cedar as 
bare as a telegraph pole. For a few feet he 
and the lioness were neighbors; they came 
down together, face to face, cheek by growl, 
as it were, leaving a trail of charred wood and 
smoke above them. Then, as the increasing 
force of gravitation made itself felt, Fred 
gained on her. Finding that she could not 
outrun a falling body, the cougar scrambled 
out a projecting bough and launched herself 
into space. Either I looked soft and springy 
to her or my hair resembled a bunch of thick 
grass in which she thought she could find con- 
cealment — anyhow, she selected me as a 
leaping-pad. Fortunately she miscalculated, 
and fell perhaps forty feet below the tree, but 
much nearer me. She was off like a flash, with 
canine pandemonium at her heels. As she 

188 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

passed Vaughan, he roped at her and made a 
perfect catch — of a juniper bush back of him. 

"Come on, boys; we got to step on her 
tail!" Ambrose yelled. And away we dashed. 

I came to rest upon the rim of a moderately 
high precipice in time to find that some of the 
dogs had missed the trail. The lioness had 
gone over at a favorable spot, but the younger 
members of the pack had raced along the ledge 
for some distance before discovering their 
mistake. Old Pot-hound, however, had not 
been so easily fooled ; he had kept his nose to 
the ground and had taken nothing for granted. 
He, too, had gone over, and was now giving 
tongue below us and back to our right. With 
frantic wails, the young hounds answered him 
and leaped blindly. They struck the slope 
below and in a clatter of gravel fled out of 
sight. 

There was no time to waste. Again we re- 
peated our first mad descent until we fetched 
up at the white limestone, which dropped 
sheer for perhaps three hundred feet. Along 
the top of this we crashed for half a mile until 
we came up with our prey. There were no 
trees here; she had come to bay on a huge 
white bowlder. She was lashing her sides and 

189 



OH, SHOOT! 

snarling soundlessly, and she presented a mag- 
nificent sight outlined against the void be- 
yond. By leaping high, the dogs could reach 
her feet, and she was stepping about gingerly 
to avoid their attacks. Somewhere in the 
brush above. Miller and Vaughan were coming 
with the camera and tripod. 

"Lemme shoot her!" I gasped once more, 
but Ambrose sternly declined to entertain 
such a thing. 

"When the boys get set up," he wheezed, 
"we'll snatch her off that rock in jig time. 
It '11 make some picture." 

I obediently uncocked my rifle and cocked 
my still camera, but just as I raised it she 
once again took to flight. 

I favored Ambrose with a loud horse laugh 
and patted my Winchester. 

"This is the thing," I declared, "to hunt 
lions with. Now we've lost her." 

So it seemed, for the chase led back along the 
top of the limestone, then descended a break 
in the cliff. At no time could we see either 
the lioness or the dogs, but the strain of our 
hound orchestra kept us apprised of her gen- 
eral whereabouts. Far below us lay the wide 
shelf formed by the "Tonto red." It was 

190 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

heavily overgrown and comparatively level — 
that is, it did not slant at an angle of more 
than forty -five degrees. Here the quarry 
bayed for a third time, and when we heard the 
new note in that chorus of canine frenzy, 
Ambrose gaily cried : 

' ' Going down ! All aboard ! ' ' 

But this was a different proposition to the 
other two descents. No one but lion hunters 
tackle the white limestone, and when our 
camera man craned his neck over the edge of 
the abyss he behaved exactly like that horse 
at the crossing of the Colorado — ^he laid back 
his ears and balked. It seemed an impossible 
task to take a camera in and out of such a 
place, so we sent him and Vaughan back up the 
long climb to the plateau, while Ambrose, 
Fred, and I nerved ourselves to go down and 
administer the coup de grdce — an undertaking 
which called for prayer and meditation. 

When we had reached the red sandstone, 
Ambrose cautioned us to go quietly, for, said he : 

"These she cats won't stand. If she makes 
another break we'll have to follow her over 
the red, and we'll be old men before we can 
climb out." 

We did our best to follow instructions, but 
191 



OH, SHOOT! 

the going was steep and treacherous, and we 
made more noise than three wooden-legged 
painters on a piazza roof. Probably the furi- 
ous barking of the dogs drowned the sounds of 
our approach, for the lioness held her stand. 

She was in a thick, low-spreading cedar, and 
three of the dogs were in the tree with her. 
It would have made a good picture, but here 
again it would have taken an X-ray to pene- 
trate the cover. Governor, a wicked, white- 
eyed Siberian wolfhound, had worked his way 
up to where he could almost nip the cougar's 
feet, while Tub and Fanny, a young matron 
who had left a family of nursing children in 
camp, urged him to be game and do so. 

"You got to kill her cold, the first shot, or 
she'll get every dog in the pack," Ambrose 
whispered. 

It was pretty close work, for the animal's 
neck was hidden, and I could only make out a 
part of one tawny shoulder. 

At the crack of the gun, the lioness was 
gone, and so was Ambrose. There came a 
savage chorus of yelps, growls, howls, and ex- 
clamations from the dogs, then a furious 
crashing in the undergrowth. As I ran past 
the cedar, Tub was yelling murder at the top 

192 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

of his voice and holding up a limp fore leg, 
while, securely wedged in a narrow fork over- 
head, Fanny appeared to be taking a swim- 
ming lesson, meanwhile uttering one ear- 
splitting shriek upon another. 

Her cries were not of agony, as I momen- 
tarily feared, nor was Tub's injury the result 
of a blow from the lioness. He had wrenched 
his leg, and Fanny — well, Fanny's figure was 
not what it had been before those puppies 
came; hence her mishap. 

No; the deer-devouring career of that 
cougar had ended in the very act of kicking 
off that limb, and the dogs were worrying her 
when we arrived. We allowed them to think 
they had done the killing, which, I learned, is 
a part of the game. 

"We got her easy, didn't we?" Ambrose 
said, wiping the sweat out of his eyes. "We'll 
top out before dark, if we hurry." 

"I won't," Fred firmly declared, "unless I 
find the rest of my pants on the way up." He 
backed into a thick brush clump, where he 
blushed a dull brick red every time we looked 
at him. "What a fellow needs for this busi- 
ness," said he, "is a pair of sole-leather running 
tights." 

193 



OH, SHOOT! 

It was a long pull back up the canon side; 
the green hide was heavy, and we left a number 
of dried-up springs in our wake. When we 
finally rose over the rim we found Miller in 
low spirits, but loud in his opinion of lions and 
lion hunters. 

"You boys move too fast for good pictures," 
he complained. "Why, I didn't get fifteen 
feet of Fred in that tree ! You must take your 
time. Stick! When I get you right, stick! 
Gee! I'll be a joke at the Screen Club if this 
keeps up ! You guys will ruin my reputation . * ' 

It was Fred's turn to be indignant. 

"Didn't I stick?" he demanded. "I was 
twenty minutes climbing down out of that 
tree." 

' ' Fifteen f eet , ' ' Miller declared. ' ' Less than 
a second. That's how you stuck! Well, 
we're going to rehearse the next stunt. You 
boys are going to go down and rope the next 
lion we find and bring him out. I'll stay up 
here and look for a nice open tree where the 
light is right; then we'll untie him, put him 
up it, and I'll get a real picture. You can 
take turns in front of the machine; you 
can rope him till he's ragged. Only, move 
SLOW." 

194 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

"Pack out a live lion?" I inquired, in dis- 
may. '' Out oi— there?'' 

' ' Sure ! You're a big, strong guy." 

For some unaccountable reason Ambrose 
seconded this fantastic idea. He seconded it 
with enthusiasm. 

"We'll do that very little thing!" he cried. 

It is true I am big and strong, but my 
strength was not equal to this unfeeling pro- 
posal. I became giddy and my knees gave 
way. When I revived, some one had propped 
Fred against a tree and was holding snow to 
his temples. 

Alas, the power of an evil suggestion! It 
recurs. It grows until it obsesses the mind of 
its unhappy victim. This phenomenon, I am 
told, accounts for much crime. That extrava- 
gant proposal to subdue a wild lion and to 
take it out of the canon alive preyed upon us. 
It was preposterous, absurd ; nevertheless, we 
could not escape it, once it had taken root in 
our brains. The very monstrosity of the idea 
rendered it hideously fascinating, and we were 
drawn to it as moths are drawn to a flame. 
We had come to Arizona to rest and to re- 
cuperate; we didn't want to pack anything 
into or out of any cafion, much less this one. 

195 



OH, SHOOT! 

Very mucli less did we desire to have dealings 
of such a nature with a live and peevish lion. 
We had packed one empty lion-skin out, and 
we were not the same men we had been. To 
think of scaling those cliffs with another skin 
stuffed and mounted with the live, pulsating, 
indignant carcass of its original owner caused 
our joints to complain and our veins to run 
water. We lost much sleep over the pos- 
sibility that we might be induced to tackle 
such a horrid undertaking; our appetites 
disappeared; we became irritable and wealdy 
hysterical. We awoke in the stilly hours 
with frightened cries, for our dreams were 
peopled with saber- toothed nightmares. But 
all the time we knew that we were going to do 
it, for it takes courage to be a coward, and 
we were just ordinary, unheroic citizens. 

During the next few days we left Miller in 
camp while we hunted — with encouraging ill 
fortune. We hunted in every kind of weather, 
all of which was bad. We hunted the high rim ; 
then we went below and hunted the red sand- 
stone. We hunted in rain, in fog, and in snow. 
We got lost, and for long hours we wandered 
through the forests, wet, hungry, miserable, 
buoyed up only by the reaHzation that if we 

196 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

perished thus we would not have to rope a live 
lion and lug it out of the canon. But invariably 
we got safely back to camp. Our good fortune 
in this respect became monotonous. 

Let me state, in passing, that it is an experi- 
ence to rim the Grand Cafion in a fog. The 
world is ghostly and unreal; objects are mag- 
nified ; gnarled trees and queer rock formations 
assume the likeness of prehistoric monsters, 
and one has no more sense of direction than a 
jellyfish. There is a constant temptation to 
ride off into space, and no little danger of 
doing so, for the earth's surface breaks away 
as if it had been removed by a cleaver, and 
when the cafion is bank-full of thick vapors, 
it looks as inviting as a feather bed. One 
skirts it with the sensations of riding the 
clouds on a winged steed. More than ever is 
one amazed to learn how far the off side of a 
horse sticks out, and when one's animal stum- 
bles, one involuntarily bites one's left ven- 
tricle, which in itself has an element of danger 
in it. Occasionally the mist will thin until, 
far below, away down between the horse's feet, 
slim spruce-tops are dimly discernible; again 
it will close like smothery curtains, through 
which one must blindly push. 

197 



OH, SHOOT! 

On one such day we were drying out around 
a fire, the dogs were shivering wretchedly, huge 
wet snowflakes were coating us Hke goose 
feathers, when Ambrose voiced the fear that 
we boys were not getting our money's worth 
out of the trip. It was his idea that we should 
leave camp much earlier, and thereby have 
more time in which to enjoy ourselves. We 
wrung out our mittens, clawed the acciunu- 
lated snow from the backs of our necks, and 
through chattering teeth assured him that any 
more enjoyment of this sort would probably 
give us pneumonia. But he was set. When 
we considered the matter, we decided that 
pneumonia wasn't so bad, after all. Conges- 
tion, fever, delirium had the edge on mutila- 
tion at the hands of a cougar; therefore we 
offered no strenuous objection when the matter 
was put up to Uncle Jim. 

Uncle Jim is a thorough man, and literal to 
a fault. He had us out the next morning at 
half past two, and he kept us awake with a 
sharp stick until we had swallowed our break- 
fast. To amuse us and to occupy our minds, 
he told us a story. 

"There's a trade rat around camp — " he 
began, but was interrupted. 

198 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

"What's a trade rat?" some one poison- 
ously inquired. 

' ' He's a kind of rat that never takes anything 
without leaving something in its place — ^may- 
be nothing more than a twig or a pebble, but 
something. You'll see their nests all over this 
country. I had a party out once, and there 
was a woman in it. One day she lost a pair 
of gloves. We couldn't find 'em any place, 
and the next night she lost her pocketbook 
with all her change in it. I told her a trade 
rat probably had it, but she allowed a trade 
cowboy had probably done the trick. I saw 
she didn't believe there was any such rats, 
and she went home thinking one of my boys 
had robbed her. It made me feel awful bad. 

"The next year I camped in that very place, 
and in the morning I found one of those gloves 
in the grub box and one of my spoons gone. I 
put Pot-hound on the trail — he'll track any- 
thing I tell him to — and he run Mr. Rat down 
in short order. In the nest I found that 
other glove and the lady's pocketbook, along 
with a lot of table silver I'd lost at odd times. 
I sent the pocketbook to the lady, but I bet 
she thinks I'd ought to pay interest for the 
time I used her money." 

199 



OH, SHOOT! 

We left camp at four o'clock, while it was 
still so dark that a man needed a lantern to 
blow his nose, and at nine o'clock Pot-hound 
let out a deep boom. The young dogs nearly- 
upset him in their desire to corroborate his 
discovery and to split credit for it. It was a 
cold trail, however, and they quickly overran 
it. After this false start they returned for 
a consultation ; then they followed the veteran, 
who set off at a moderate pace. Pot will not 
be hurried, nor will he permit himself to be 
discouraged. 

"It's a lion," Ambrose announced, "and 
he's in the game bag." 

During the next three hours we witnessed 
the most wonderful, the most uncanny ex- 
hibition of canine sagacity I have ever beheld. 
The trail was evidently hoiurs old, and it had 
been made by a hunting cougar, for it me- 
andered aimlessly. It ran into and out of 
draws; it took us far back into the forest, 
then out again to the edge of the chasm. 

Meanwhile, the sun was bright, the heat 
was intense, and the scent was becoming ever 
more difficult to follow. We sat our horses 
for perhaps a quarter of an hour at a time 
while the dogs worked a space no larger than 

200 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

a room. They would smell every leaf, every 
pine cone, every twig ; they would rear up and 
smell both sides of overhanging branches for 
the full length; they would lip the ground 
until their tongues were black. Occasionally 
they would break away and make wide circles, 
only to return and take up the scent where 
they had lost it, working out the trail with the 
care of scientists. 

After a couple of hours, the younger ones 
gave up and lay down, baffled, exhausted; but 
Pot-hound persevered in his investigations, for 
all the world like some patient old professor in 
a laboratory. By this time he could detect 
the scent only in shady places, and there but 
faintly. He would give tongue at the base of 
a tree, then trot across one open space after 
another until he caught it again. He pos- 
sesses the hunting instinct raised to the nth 
degree of refinement, and I seriously doubt if 
any other animal on this continent could have 
duplicated his performance. 

We had skirted a deep cafion which ran 
back into the mesa, when Ambrose said: 

"There's a spring down yonder. Let's take 
the dogs under and give them a drink. May- 
be they'll strike the trail down there." 

20I 



OH, SHOOT! 

Accordingly, we tied our horses and de- 
scended. We found the water — and con- 
sumed most of it — then Ambrose led the pack 
down the gulch on a fruitless quest. He 
returned with the regretful announcement 
that all bets were off and we'd better go home. 

Up we climbed and remounted our horses. 
But, although the young dogs were delighted 
to call this a day's work. Pot refused to leave. 
Ambrose called him, but the old fellow was 
once more meandering from shade to shade, 
occasionally giving voice to his announcement 
that the king had passed this way. We 
waited. Eventually the rest of the pack rose 
stiffly and followed him, but with expressions 
of resignation which made it plain that they 
considered Pot a stubborn old fool who had 
to be humored. 

Ambrose held his sombrero to his ear. 
There came a faint soprano yelp from Fanny, 
then a doubtful boom from Governor; later, 
we heard a distant commotion under the rim. 
Ambrose replaced his hat. 

"Come on, boys," said he; "theyVe treed 
him!" 

Away we galloped, and when we dis- 
mounted, a few moments later, a blood-stir- 

202 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

ring chorus rose from beneath our feet, and we 
could see the dogs leaping at the base of a tall 
pine far below. 

"No rough stuff this time," Ambrose 
cautioned, as we went crashing downward. 
"We're going to rope, throw, and brand this 
bird, and bring him out alive." 

This cougar looked like the twin sister of 
the other one. She, too, was poised in the 
lower branches of her tree, and peering curi- 
ously down at the dogs when we arrived. 
Once again we took positions where we could 
ease her fall in case she decided to jump. 

Ambrose, with his lariat in his teeth, went 
up to call, but as he mounted toward her the 
lioness retreated. After some trouble he 
managed to get above her, but as he tmcoiled 
his rope she quitted her position and soared 
outward in a mighty leap. 

She hit so hard that she bounced, but away 
she darted, with the dogs at her tail and with 
us rampaging after. A quarter-of-a-mile run 
and we found her rocking comfortably in a 
brushy oak. The branches hid her body, but 
her head protruded from the very top. Hur- 
riedly we cut a pole for Ambrose, but it was 
not a good pole-growing neighborhood and 
14 203 



OH, SHOOT! 

the staff we fashioned was clumsy. With it 
he undertook to place a loop over the animal's 
neck. It would seem to be a simple matter 
to snare a lion under such conditions, but it is 
not. When the noose neared her head, the 
cougar tucked her ears back out of the way 
and bit the pole in two. While Ambrose per- 
sisted patiently in his enterprise, Fred climbed 
to a bowlder where he could get elbow room 
and began to throw at her. She was just out 
of reach of his rope, however, and his casts 
fell a foot or two short. He built loop after 
loop and sailed them up, only to have them 
settle a trifle below her. After each cast she 
seized the rope in her teeth ; whereupon there 
ensued a tug of war. It was a pretty game to 
watch. 

Failing in these attempts, Fred climbed a 
neighboring oak, the while we engaged our 
quarry's attention, and it began to look as if 
the affair were about over. But as he broke 
a limb to accommodate his cast, she looked 
over her shoulder straight into his countenance 
and decided the neighborhood was becoming 
uncomfortably crowded. 

Justice to that cougar compels me to say 
that Fred was not nice to look upon. It was 

204 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

a hot day; he was sweaty and his beard was 
stiff, but personally I could see nothing in his 
appearance that would have caused me to kick 
off the whole top of a tree. Of course, I know 
Fred and I like him. I am prejudiced in his 
favor. I have seen him when he looked even 
worse than at that moment; but lions do not 
make friends easily and there was something 
about him that this one did not care for. 
How she escaped a broken collar bone or a 
sprained ankle I don't know, for she lit with 
a terrible flop. 

Back we scuttled, over the very trail we had 
just covered. We knew it to be the same trail, 
for there were familiar pieces of cuticle on the 
brush, and the rocks gouged us, the thorns 
ripped us in precisely the same places they had 
gouged and ripped us en route hereto. The 
cougar bayed in the very pine tree from which 
we had dislodged her in the first place, and 
we realized that our trip to the oak and back 
had been a complete waste of time, effort, and 
epidermis. It had been a perfectly senseless 
and futile performance, and we told the lion- 
ess so. 

Once more we climbed that tree, and once 
more she jumped. Doubtless she intended to 

20S 



OH, SHOOT! 

hotfoot it back to her acorn bower, thence 
back here, repeating the journey over and over 
until monotony wore us down or until those 
thorns and brambles reduced us to harmless 
shreds. But Governor, the Siberian wolf- 
hound, spoiled her pretty little program. He 
leaped upon her back, sank his incisors into 
her neck, and enjoyed a free ride until he was 
scraped off. 

I have never had a dog bite the back of my 
neck, but I am ticklish, and I know I should 
resent it as bitterly as did our lioness. Having 
rid herself of her passenger, she plunged 
straight down the slope, and the pack swept 
after her. 

We men sat down and groaned. It was 
then and still is my belief that a rope is a 
darned inconclusive weapon with which to 
hunt wild animals. A slippery-elm club offers 
far better terminal facilities. 

By this time those lariats and leather 
collars and log chains which we had pains- 
takingly carried back and forth had come to 
weigh as much as a collection of anvils, for 
in such a country a quill toothpick will tax a 
man's endurance. 

"You g-go ahead and — ^keep her mind oc- 
ao6 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

cupied," we told Ambrose. "We'll bring the 
junk." 

Ambrose acted upon this suggestion, and 
went bounding down the hillside with a fine, 
free, double-action movement. When we had 
crashed our way down, then clawed our way 
up the opposite side of the gulch, we found 
him trying to convince the lioness that his 
loop was perfectly painless and would not 
harm her in the least. 

"It's no go! " he yelled, above the din of the 
dogs. "She's et up every pole I've cut!" 

As a variation to our former practice, both 
he and Fred went up this tree together, and 
while Fred diverted the animal's attention by 
sundry devices, Ambrose at last succeeded in 
slipping a loop over the cougar's head. Oddly 
enough, she paid no heed whatever to the rope, 
once it was in place. Fred took the end of it 
and cautiously drew it snug, while Ambrose 
rigged a second snare on the end of his pole 
and repeated his previous maneuver. We let 
out a feeble, apprehensive cheer to celebrate 
our daring capture. 

"Now then, let's stretch her," Ambrose 
suggested. 

This was no difficult operation, although 
207 



OH, SHOOT! 

Fred somewhat complicated it by falling back- 
ward out of the tree and jerking the lioness 
from her perch. Fortunately, however, she 
fell over a limb, the rope held, and she re- 
mained suspended. There was a momentary 
question whether she would come down and 
take Fred up or vice versa, but Ambrose 
wrapped his legs round his perch and hung 
grimly to the other lariat. Meanwhile, our 
victim was spinning like a gyroscope, and 
turning aerial handsprings until the whole 
tree shook. She was livelier than a tarpon, 
and we were glad our tackle was heavy. 

Hurriedly we tied up the dogs, then lowered 
the lioness. Now, the air at eight thousand 
feet is rare, but our hangman's nooses at her 
throat had rendered it rarer still, and she was 
limp when we let her down. She had fainted ; 
hence it took but an instant to tie her feet. 
Even as the last knot was drawn, however, she 
recovered, and she recovered with a rush. 
Her eyelids did not flutter; she did not heave 
a long hesitating sigh and say, "Where am I? " 

Nothing like that. She knew where she 
was and she knew where I was — or where I 
had been a minute fraction of a second 
previously. 

208 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

I left those trousers on the plateau when I 
came home, for they were of no further prac- 
tical value and I had a pair of chaps. 

It is easier to muzzle than to rope a cougar. 
You merely cut a short, stout stick and pre- 
sent it gingerly. The cougar seizes it — and 
one or more of your fingers — then you bind 
the stick in place with a few deft turns of 
rope and bind your fingers back where they 
belong with whatever is handy. 

Ambrose wore a grin to match that of the 
gagged cougar. 

' ' This is the life ! " he said, joyously. ' ' Now 
all we got to do is pack her out." 

That was all. By lying flat on our backs 
we could manage to look up to the rim, but it 
was then three o'clock in the afternoon and 
we had not eaten for twelve hours. Camp 
was perhaps eight miles distant. Some one 
suggested leaving the lioness chained to this 
tree for the night, but Ambrose would not 
hear of it. 

"If we get her out now, she'll be fresh as a 
daisy to-morrow. We can get her out all 
right if we handle her easy and don't bust her 
corners." 

Accordingly, we cut a pole and threaded the 
209 



OH, SHOOT! 

lioness upon it. To climb the side of the 
Grand Canon with a stout sapling on your 
shoulder is no cinch. When to that sapling 
you add a two-hundred-pound lion e7i brochette, 
the task assumes real proportions. For every 
step you advance, you slide back two; for 
every foot you mount, the rim grows two feet 
higher. The brush is stiff and it all slants 
downhill; the suspended lion swings like a 
pendulum and threatens to throw you. We 
found it easiest to proceed on our hands and 
knees. In this position we could proceed 
with comparative comfort — as much as three 
feet at a time. It was very hot, and inasmuch 
as the man on the downhill end of the pole 
wore the cougar round his neck like a fur boa 
most of the time, he experienced a constant 
feeling of oppression — a shortness of breath, 
a very real discomfort Then, too, her whisk- 
ers got in his ears. 

At one time, her front feet came untied, and 
for a few moments there was a break in the 
monotony while we tramped down a good 
many yards of brush and rolled them flat. 
To train for such a contingency, one should 
hug a buzz saw for ten minutes every day on 
an empty stomach. Ours were very empty. 

2IO 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

Inch by inch we ascended, and for every 
moment of distress we had caused that crea- 
ture, she caused us two. Halfway to the top, 
she was breathing heavily, possibly from re- 
strained laughter, so we laid her in the shade 
and Fred went down to the creek and brought 
up a hatful of water. We poured it in her face ; 
she gargled it and mastered her amusement. 

The pole broke and we had to shorten it, 
which rendered the affair more difficult; we 
strained up the face of cliffs and over bare 
ledges, where we sunk our nails in and clawed 
until the sparks flew. At six o'clock we 
topped out. We had been only three hours 
coming up. 

If I were asked to choose between repeating 
that performance and toting a grand piano 
up the Palisades of the Hudson River, I would 
unhesitatingly choose the piano. 

By now we had forrxied the habit of going on 
all fours and had to learn how to walk up- 
right. The lioness was thirsty again, and in- 
asmuch as the dogs were still tied down in the 
cafion, Ambrose offered to play Gunga Din 
to the cougar while we returned for the pack. 

We had left Paul with the dogs. When we 
reappeared he voiced an unfeeling inquiry as 

211 



OH, SHOOT! 

to how we had found all the home folks in 
New York. 

"What have you boys been doing for the 
last three hours?" he demanded. 

"Oh, nothing — ^just climbing around," we 
told him. 

"Did you get her up?" 

"Easy!" 

"Never scratched her varnish," Fred de- 
clared. "To-morrow we'll put her in a nice 
tree and pose on every limb. They'll be some 
pictures, believe me." 

But Paul was pessimistic. 

"I don't care much for these fake 'movies,' " 
said he. "Give me the real thing." 

"Who's going to know this is a fake?" we 
demanded. ' ' We can look brave — after we've 
rested up, and — " 

"Humph! I think you're a couple of nuts." 
This seemed to be a harsh judgment under the 
circumstances, but we lacked strength to 
argue. 

We led the dogs on their leashes until we 
were nearly to the top; then we called to 
Ambrose, who had topped out ahead of us 
with his sombrero full of water. 

"Is it all right to turn the dogs loose?" 

212 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

''Sure! Turn 'em aloose!" he yelled back. 
"I've got her half skinned." 

Fred and I clung weakly to each other. 

"Wh — what!'' we screamed. 

Ambrose came to the edge of the cliff and 
leaned over. 

"We should have left her where she was," 
he shouted. "Her belly was full of fresh 
meat, and when I got back she was dead. 
Indigestion, I guess." 

"Couple of nuts!" Paul muttered, as he 
toiled painfully upward. 

Ambrose had spoken truly. He had re- 
turned from his errand of mercy to find our 
victim no longer of this world. He had her 
hide off when we reached him. 

Night was approaching; the deep side 
caiion lay between us and our horses; camp 
was a long way beyond, and an inexplicable 
lassitude had come over us. We were a 
silent party; no one had much to say except 
Paul, and his remarks we chose to ignore. 

We took a short cut on the way to camp, 
and, to mark the end of a perfect day, we got 
lost. In all likelihood we would have wan- 
dered through those woods until we perished 
from loneliness, and the painful details of our 

213 



OH, SHOOT! 

vacation would never have been written had 
not Bill Vaughan stumbled upon us about 
midnight and led us back to Uncle Jim's fire. 

That concluded my part of the entertain- 
ment. I had had enough rest to do me, and 
the strenuous business of pencil pushing called 
me home; so the next day I left the plateau. 

I had intended to return by way of Bright 
Angel Creek and the safe-and-sane trail to the 
El Tovar, but Uncle Jim and Ambrose shat- 
tered my dream by announcing that the water 
was too high and that I must go back as I 
had come. Thoughts of the rampageous Shi- 
numo, of that rickety cable, of the breath- 
taking, hair-raising features of the trail down 
and up to Bass's Camp arose to haunt me; 
therefore I was not ashamed when I broke 
down and sobbed upon Fred's shoulder. Nor 
was he unmoved at the parting. With tears in 
his eyes, with a quiver of deep and genuine 
emotion in his voice, he said: 

"When you get back to the hotel — ^if you 
do get back — eat half of a chocolate cake for 
me. I've heard it tastes fine." 

I urged him and Paul to return with me. 
I told them they had rested long enough, and 
I SDoke feelingly of stewed chicken and dump- 

214 



THE COWARDLY COUGAR 

lings, but they sadly shook their heads and 
said no; the trip was benefiting them and 
they were going to stay with it as long as their 
strength lasted. 

When Miller pressed my hand, he said: 

"I'm certainly sorry to see you go, for I'm 
afraid those other boys aren't husky enough 
to pack out another lion. Now, you — " 

But I clapped my hands to my ears and fled. 

Why recount the happenings of the return 
journey? Ordinarily I loathe stewed chicken, 
but visions of a large platter of it, garnished 
with some chops and a steak or two, buoyed 
me up, and I broke the trans-cafion record. I 
ate half a chocolate cake when I got in, but I 
did not think of Fred. I thought of nothing 
but that cake. It was a delicacy I had never 
before tasted. 

The other boys stayed on. They got more 
lions, and they experienced numerous adven- 
tures more interesting than those I have re- 
counted, but those adventures form no part of 
this story. 



V 

MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

IT was during that fishing and hunting trip 
to the San Bias coast of Central America 
that I was first seized with an acute interest 
in the Gulf of California. Salisbury, my com- 
panion on that trip, had talked about it some- 
what after this fashion: 

''I've been where the fish were so hungry I 
had to stand back of a tree to bait my hook, 
but in the gulf you don't have to bother with 
bait at all. They'll bite the propeller of a 
launch. All the bait you need is a rag. You 
can't troll it fifty feet before a fish will nab it. 
Before you can reel him in, a bigger fish will 
have him, and another one still bigger will grab 
that one, and then a whopper will nail fish 
number three and — and — why, it's merely a 
case of fitting one fish over another until your 
tackle breaks!" Salisbury was panting; in 
his eyes was that mounting maniac glare 
which every sportsman recognizes as true 

216 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

Dementia piscatoris. "And hunting! Hunt- 
ing? Say! I stood in one spot on Tiburon 
Island and, without lowering my hand, I 
killed seven deer with a six-shooter." 

' ' Number, please? How many? ' ' I queried. 

"Seven! Big burro deer — four hundred 
pounds apiece!" Salisbury's arithmetic is of 
the free, outdoor variety, but, after all, what 
is one deer more or less? "I can lay a boat 
alongside of bluffs where you can shoot moun- 
tain sheep so they'll drop on the deck," he 
ran along, wildly. "And cannibals! Boy! 
If you want cannibals, there's a bunch of 'em 
on Tiburon." 

Now, I never had wanted a cannibal. I 
could not imagine anybody feeling the faintest 
yearning for one, but before Ed had finished 
with me I felt the first subconscious craving in 
that line and registered a vow to inflict my 
personality upon that innocent man-eating 
community at the earliest opportunity. 

But that opportunity was delayed; it took 
me a long time to devise an excuse sufficiently 
plausible to convince my wife that my presence 
was needed in the Gulf of California. Any 
married himter who has inherited the wander- 
ing foot, any wedlocked fisherman born with 

217 



OH, SHOOT! 

a silver spoon-hook in his mouth, as it were, 
will understand the adroit indirectness with 
which I led up to the mention of a wholly fic- 
titious business opportunity in the upper gulf 
that needed investigation. Slowly, through 
the months, I built up its importance, until, at 
last, I reluctantly decided to tear myself away 
from my work and look into it, just to have it 
off my mind. 

Salisbury, too, had his difficulties, for he 
had gone into the navy, and navies — like 
wives — have put the kibosh on many a glorious 
and unnecessary vacation. The day came, 
however, when we could proceed with the de- 
lightful vexations of preparing for the trip. 
During the interim we had clothed that 
imaginary commercial enterprise in such re- 
alistic garb that we believed in it — what is 
more, we had convinced several other tired 
business men of its reality, and they, too, had 
decided that the Gulf of California had gone 
along without them as far as possible and 
could no longer succeed alone. Gravely we 
negotiated with yacht brokers for a charter; 
secretly we chattered about the wild men of 
Tiburon, and bought unlimited quantities of 
guns, ammunition, rods, reels, harpoons, cast 

218 



■ 

'' 1 
R 

•• ' III 




■[■ilM'fc 1 





MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

nets, gaffs, and boat hooks with which to 
demonstrate the oil and mineral possibilities 
of the country. 

We laid in a large supply of boat hooks, for 
we reasoned, conservatively enough, that not 
all the mountain sheep we purposed shooting 
would fall upon the deck of the yacht. Some 
few would doubtless miss the boat or bounce 
overboard, and we did not wish to lose any 
specimens; hence the necessity of tools with 
which to retrieve them. After some debate, 
we decided not to pad the deck of our craft. 
What matter if some few horns were broken by 
the fall? Game was all too plentiful, anyhow, 
according to Salisbury. So plentiful was it, 
in fact, that we swelled our party to twice its 
intended size in order that no meat should 
spoil. 

There was Pettis — he makes cannon and 
car wheels and various kinds of steel and iron 
fancy work; my brother Elmer, who, out of 
the fishing season, works at the law business; 
"Doc" Wilson, who conducts a sanatorium 
for the treatment of motor troubles, adminis- 
ters gas to and operates upon sick steamboats, 
launches, automobiles, and the like; and 
"Carrots," a'lias McDowell. "Carrots" vol- 
15 219 



OH, SHOOT! 

imteered to sign on as cook, and we permitted 
him to do so because he declared he was a 
good shot. 

At the last, just as the boat was about to 
hop off from San Pedro, on its twelve-hundred- 
mile hike to Guaymas, Crisp arrived out of 
breath and with the dust of the Hollywood 
studios still upon him. He wore a yachting 
cap from the property room, and he gabbled 
feverishly about shooting thirty scenes a day 
for five days and changing a seven-reel dra- 
matic feature into a two-reel comedy in order 
to reach the dock on time. 

Ed Salisbury we had promoted, by consent 
of all except himself, to navigator, and for 
the engine room we had Ed's brother Bill — • 
Bill also being nee the navy. He had just 
received his discharge from the service after 
a trip through the Panama Canal in the bowels 
of a destroyer and was fed up on seagoing 
stuff. He couldn't walk down an alley with- 
out bracing himself and hanging to window 
sills, but we persuaded him to go along for the 
rest and act as governess to the motor. We 
hope, in the course of five or six years, to live 
down the promises we made to Bill, and he 
expects, in the same length of time, to lose the 

220 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

flavor of cylinder oil and get the grease out of 
his pores. Neither, however, is in any way 
probable. 

The owner of the yacht Par acted as general 
chaperon, and, lastly, there was Eddie, a 
Nicaraguan colored boy of indefinite age. 
Candor compels me to admit that without 
Eddie the whole trip would have fliwed. 
Lacking him, we would have been unable to 
concentrate our attention upon the wide 
industrial problems we had set out to study; 
we would have been forced to heave in the 
anchor, make up the berths, wash down the 
decks, tidy up the gear, wait on table, row 
the small boat and run the yacht tender, pre- 
pare the vegetables, wash the dishes, and so 
forth. But Eddie relieved us of these minor 
annoyances, and, moreover, applied himself 
to a multitude of other tasks more trying. 
He did everything that in any degree savored 
of work, except run the engine, and by and 
large, watch by watch, he is the best crew I 
ever sailed with. Any boy who can success- 
fully serve as the entire personnel of a ship 
with nine captains in authority over him is 
worthy of advancement. This we recognized, 
and so, whenever new responsibilities arose 

221 



OH, SHOOT! 

or new tasks became necessary, we unani- 
mously elected Eddie to do them. 

To yachtsmen cruising in west Mexican 
waters, gasoline is a problem, for it is scarce 
and poor and commands about the same price 
as the best grade of contraband alcoholic 
beverages. When our boat sailed, her tanks 
were full, her decks crowded with steel drums, 
and her cabins packed with case goods. She 
smelled like a dry-cleaning establishment and 
was anything but an ideal retreat for a bunch 
of tobacco fiends. 

Pettis and I were considered of less value 
than our weight in gasoline; so we went by 
train to Guaymas, the most northerly town on 
the Gulf of California, picking up my brother 
en route. 

The Southern Pacific of Mexico, a subsidiary 
of our Southern Pacific, at this time ran three 
passenger trains a week in and out of Mexico, 
connecting with the main system at Nogales, 
Arizona, a town built astride the international 
border, and this intermittent schedule served 
a double purpose: not only did it allow the 
border customs officials more time in which to 
harass, humiliate, and annoy travelers, but 
also it made life easier for the Yaqui Indians. 

322 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

These Yaquls are a playful people, and they 
dearly love to hold up the Southern Pacific 
trains. That is one of their favorite sports 
and pastimes. The tribe has been at war for 
going on forty years, and it is not so numerous 
as it once was; naturally, therefore, it would 
work a hardship upon the survivors to run 
more trains than they can handle. Nor can 
a Yaqui do well without his accustomed sleep, 
so the trains were nm only by day and laid up 
at night. 

Let me not imply that two generations of 
habitual warfare with the Mexican govern- 
ment has resulted in reducing the strength of 
the tribe to any serious extent. Not so. 
There have been deaths among the Yaquis, 
to be sure — deaths from accident, old age, 
exposure, and general wear and tear. Prob- 
ably, too, there has been a lot of acute indi- 
gestion and ptomaine poisoning, for one could 
hardly expect a party of Yaquis who had 
suddenly fallen heir to a whole trainload of 
canned goods to curb their appetites, especially 
when flushed and glowing from the exercise of 
chasing the train crew up the track or when 
weary from the butchering of passengers. 
Nothing induces such a healthy hunger as 

223 



OH, SHOOT! 

vigorous work in the open, and the fine, dry 
air of Sonora is in itself a tonic. 

Outside of such fataUties as these, however, 
I could learn of little that had occurred to 
decimate the ranks of these warriors. Life 
for them appears to be an ideal arrangement, 
for when they tire of bloodshed, or become 
financially straitened, or wear out the rifling 
in their gun barrels, they may either join their 
peaceful brethren in the Mexican towns, there 
to rest, pitch quoits, and play cowboy pool 
until the call of the wild again summons them 
to the glad, free, careless life of the hills, or 
they may ride boldly north across the border, 
singing their folk songs and shooting at sign- 
boards, there to mingle with their Arizona 
brethren and to enjoy, so long as suits them, 
the blessings of Uncle Sam's peace, protection, 
and religious training. 

At Nogales, we obtained a wholly false idea 
of our international boundary. At that point, 
it is marked by a high, barbed-wire fence 
which separates the American from the Mex- 
ican town and runs up over the hills and out 
of sight. That fence gave us a feeling of terri- 
torial inviolability until we learned that a 
short distance beyond the suburbs it peters 

224 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

out. Without doubt, that bristling barbed 
wire serves a purpose; it is a real hindrance 
to the free passage back and forth across the 
border of Yaqui war parties, bandits, smug- 
glers and the like, and makes necessary a 
detour of several miles. The going through 
the cactus is not very good, but frequent 
usage is vastly improving it. Why the Yaqui 
Chamber of Commerce does not affiliate with 
some of the prominent Mexican bandit march- 
ing clubs and lay a good macadam road 
around the end of the fence, I don't know. 

Seriously, the Yaqui situation in Sonora is 
amazing to anyone who is not used to it, and 
brings home a vivid realization of the narrow 
line dividing social and political order from 
chaos. 

As one rushes through the Yaqui country 
at an average rate of nearly eighteen miles an 
hour, the effects of political ferment and social 
upheaval are apparent. We were looking into 
the latent opportunities of Mexico, and we 
found practically all industry in Sonora para- 
lyzed by the conditions that exist there. It is 
a state rich in resources; not long ago its 
plains were alive with cattle, its valleys were 
occupied by ranches, its mines were yielding 

225 



OH, SHOOT! 

work and profit to many. To-day, one travels 
miles without seeing a herd of stock; vast 
reaches that were under ditch have grown up 
to brush; and mining, for the most part, is 
carried on in a desultory, furtive sort of way. 
On our train were a number of Americans 
with property interests on this coast. They 
were considerably discouraged, decidedly re- 
sentful, and a bit bewildered. 

"We don't know where we stand," one of 
them told me. "We're neither Mexicans nor 
Americans. Under the terms of the new 
Mexican Constitution, we foreigners can't take 
title to lands situated within the frontier and 
coastal zones, and only by waiver of citizen- 
ship may we acquire property in the interior. 
It comes hard to renounce one's citizenship, 
and yet our own government treats us like 
outlaws. 

"This west coast is wonderful. We came 
here in time of peace, put in our labor and 
money, brought our families — it was our prom- 
ised land. Then came the revolution and 
most of us had to get out with whatever we 
could lay our hands on. Some few Americans 
stuck and got through, but the rest of us are 
just beginning to come back. We don't know 

226 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

how long we'll be allowed to stay, and the un- 
certainty, the insecurity, is getting on our 
nerves. Those of us farther south are doing 
fairly well at present, but here in Sonora, of 
course, the Indians are in charge." 

"How many Yaquis are there?" I inquired. 

"Probably not more than a thousand bad 
ones." 

"And they have paralyzed the entire state? " 
I was indeed amazed. 

"The greater part of it. The government 
could clean them up in no time if it cared to, 
but it doesn't. Why, if a Yaqui should run 
a nail in his foot, the local military commander 
would send regrets and hang crape on the bar- 
racks door. You see, without Yaquis there 
would be no soldiers; no soldiers, no generals; 
no generals, no graft. It's a poor sort of war, 
but it is steady, and it pays the same wages as a 
good war. The situation works out about like 
this: When things get too quiet, the soldiers 
round up the peaceful Yaquis in some town, 
deport part of them, or possibly shoot a few. 
Naturally the 'bronchos' hear about it and re- 
taliate by raiding a ranch or holding up a train, 
whereupon there is great excitement and a new 
campaign is started. It's tough on ranchers 

227 



OH, SHOOT! 

and travelers, but it keeps the soldiers out in 
the open air. Yonder, by the way, is an Amer- 
ican who went through the last outrage. He 
can tell you quite a story." 

The man indicated was not averse to 
talking, but the longer he discoursed upon the 
Yaqui subject, the more I realized that we 
had erred in coming to Guaymas by rail 
instead of by water. No matter how rough 
the Pacific and how wet a three-room yacht 
with kitchenette, neither could be as messy as 
a massacre. 

"They killed about forty passengers that 
day," my new acquaintance told me. "First 
they robbed us; then they stripped us of our 
clothes. They were taking me out to line me 
up with some others to be shot, but I jumped 
off the wrong side of the platform and made a 
dash for the brush. There was a lot of con- 
fusion and excitement, and I managed to 
keep hid out until they had cleaned up the 
train and ridden off. Then I climbed into 
the mail car and got something to cover my 
nakedness. I came into Empalme that night 
wearing a pair of socks and two mail sacks — 
one for a shirt and the other for a pair of kilts. 
Two Americans with me were killed — 'One of 

228 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

them while he lay wounded and begging for 
mercy. One woman managed to save herself 
by feigning death. The man seated next to 
her was killed at the first volley, but she 
dipped her hand in his blood and smeared 
herself with it. They stripped her dress off 
her without discovering the ruse." 

"What has been done about it?" 

"'Done'?" My informant was puzzled. 
"Oh, there was considerable excitement, and 
the troops went out for a while — •" 

"Didn't our government take any action?" 
I ventured to inquire. 

"Quit your kidding. This is Mexico, not 
Europe. That sort of thing has been going on 
down here for years. Those are the chances we 
have to take, the price we Americans pay for 
trying to make a living outside our own border." 

The so-called "danger zone" began at 
Torres and extended south to the Yaqui River. 
At the former point, our train took on two 
armored cars, equipped with machine guns 
and a crew of soldiers clad in pajamas. Be- 
hind a freight train, which acted as pilot, we 
continued our journey, beguiled, meanwhile, 
by stories of bloodcurdling atrocities calcu- 
lated to put us fully at our ease. 

229 



OH, SHOOT! 

But it turned out to be a dull trip, and we 
encountered nothing more dangerous than the 
native cooking which lay in wait at every stop. 
The country was inert, dead, but the in- 
habitants of the scattered villages appeared 
content despite their poor circumstances and 
obvious idleness. The countrymen and the 
boys were as dirty as one would expect in the 
midst of such poverty, but the women were 
surprisingly clean — a condition that we could 
not account for until we reasoned that they 
perform the homely household duties. The 
explanation is simple : they cannot roll tortillas 
on their naked knees and mix white flour into 
sticky pastries without losing some of the — 
let us say local color which renders them so 
picturesque. 

In Guaymas, one got an impressive idea 
of Mexico's present state. Here, as else- 
where, one encountered the trail of destruc- 
tion left by the serpent of social unrest. For 
example, let me quote from a prospectus issued 
by a large land-development company oper- 
ating near that city — true words when they 
were written not very long ago : 

Mexico ofifers to the settler a delightful climate, fertile 
farms, none better in the world; a rapidly developing coun- 

230 




WHEN OUR BOAT SAILED, HER TANKS WERE FULL AND HER DECKS CROWDED 
WITH STEEL DRUMS 




THE GULF IS, IN TRUTH, A GIGANTIC FISH TRAP 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

try where energy and ability reap their just reward; perfect 
security for person and property; transportation facilities of 
the first order. The titles to all land in the valley (Yaqui) 
are clear, and there have never been any lawsuits in connec- 
tion therewith. The form and process of transfer of real 
estate in Mexico are much the same as in the United States. 
Small thievery is imknown — property interests are safe. 
Mexican taxes are never excessive. Mexican laws are just 
and equal, and are much better administered than in the 
United States. 

Aside from the kind words about climate, 
the above statements make humorous reading 
these days, and therein lies the appalling 
lesson. 

With the world on short rations, and the 
price of foodstuffs, even here in the United 
States, up to a mining-carnp level, no region 
offers a greater example of wasted oppor- 
tunity, of criminal extravagance, than this 
west coast of Mexico. 

A marvelous climate, abundant water, a 
soil bursting with every growing thing, ac- 
cessibility to the world's markets, ample labor 
— all this the west coast has, and yet, for the 
most part, it lies fallow, weed-grown, with its 
farms deserted and its ditches caving in. 
Carranza said, "These foreigners must quit 
making money out of Mexico," and that state 
of affairs has come to pass. But the Mexi- 

231 



OH, SHOOT I 

cans, too, have quit making money out of 
Mexico, for they have not the means with 
which to reap their own blessings. Nor, at 
this writing, are conditions improving to any 
visible extent, and so, while war-shocked 
peoples are bending to the task of increasing 
the earth's productivity, one of the very 
richest of its gardens lies idle. 

Guaymas was a busy town of fifteen thou- 
sand inhabitants before Madero's day; its 
shops were stocked ; its harbor was filled with 
ships from every land; trains were rolling 
northward heavy with freight; a boom had 
struck the west coast. Lands were being 
colonized; irrigation ditches were building; 
ranches were growing; mines were opening. 
To-day, Guaymas is one third its former size, 
its shops are empty, and its harbor is the same. 
Many of its prominent citizens are in exile; 
three trains a week serve the whole west coast. 
Even religion has been done away with and 
the churches are closed. 

A citizen of Guaymas, a Mexican gentleman 
of education, of force, and of surprising en- 
ergy, pointed out to me the hazy hills across 
the bay and said: 

"Yonder I have thousands of acres of the 
232 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

richest land in the world, and although I can 
feast my eyes on it from here, I can't get close 
enough to work it. Over beyond those moun- 
tains I have a big stock ranch that I haven't 
seen for years. Fifteen thousand head of my 
cattle were run off or were slaughtered for 
their hides, and their carcasses left to rot. It 
is much the same elsewhere, and there are 
many others like me. We need your money 
and your help to bring Mexico back where she 
was." 

This man's plight was due to local condi- 
tions — to those marauding redskins; but 
farther south, outside the Yaqui belt, affairs 
were in little better stead. Banditry in this 
state, loose government in that; a Bolshevist 
land policy resulting in idleness, chaos, graft; 
a general scarcity of capital, and, above all, 
a paralyzing sense of uncertainty as to what 
will happen next — that was the impression a 
casual visitor gained of the west coast, and it 
was the part of Mexico least ravaged by strife, 
most blessed with peace and security. 

I do not pretend to speak with authority on 
the internal affairs of Mexico. It is a large 
subject, and too many men have pretended to 
understand it. But there are questions so 

233 



OH, SHOOT! 

plain, problems so elemental, that even a 
thirty-two-caliber brain can grasp them. 

How can that country get back on her feet, 
the way she is going? Whence is to come the 
help she needs if she continues to antagonize 
those willing to assist her? How can we prove 
to her that we are not her enemies? How 
long will a world clamorous for peace, hungry 
for food, bankrupt of raw materials, permit 
one of its richest sections to be trod under the 
feet of rioters? 

Self-determination of peoples, racial in- 
tegrity, experiments in the various forms and 
theories of government — all these we Yankees 
are pledged to respect — and it is our wish to 
respect them. But nature demands an equi- 
librium. Chaos cannot continue to exist 
alongside of order. One part of the world 
will not long consent to go hungry the while 
another part fails to till its fields or refuses to 
sell its crops. One of the first tasks ahead of 
our statesmen, it seems to me, should be an 
earnest, honest effort to aid Mexico to find 
herself. If ever we can be brought to enunci- 
ate and adhere to a definite foreign policy, I 
believe we can make friends once more with 
the Mexicans and renew the neighborly rela- 

234 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

tions that formerly existed, for the substan- 
tial, thinking men of that country are awake 
to the perils of present tendencies and would 
welcome our co-operation. 

But to go on with this story, such as it is. 
The Par was several days late in arriving, and 
about the time we had given her up she crept 
into port and, with a weak bleat of relief from 
her police whistle, dropped anchor. Then 
out of her swarmed a bunch of bewhiskered 
beach combers, who fell to reviling the boat, 
the weather, the life of a yachtsman, and one 
another. 

"She stood on her head all the way down 
the outside and on her tail all the way up the 
gulf," Salisbury wailed. "She's not a sub 
chaser; she's a retriever. We've been up for 
air just three times on the whole jaunt, and 
the compass is out anywhere from twelve to 
eighty degrees. I had to take her by the 
horns and lead her from one landmark to 
another." 

"Had to pull down the engine and rebuild 
it in the middle of a storm," some one said. 
It was Bill speaking, as we discovered when 
we took some sail cloth and paint remover 
and rubbed away part of his grime. " ' Come 
16 235 



OH, SHOC/n 

along for the rest,'" he quoted, hollowly, then 
gave a mirthless laugh. "Say! How do the 
trains run out of here?" 

That was Bill's last burst of merriment; 
thereafter he avoided speech or contact with 
the rest of us. He came up on deck e very- 
few days, to be sure, and stood out on the back 
porch of the Par, doubtless meditating mu- 
tinously upon the life of ease he had led in the 
depths of a destroyer, but whenever we dis- 
covered him so engaged we drove him back 
into the engine room. 

Another tragedy had marred the southward 
trip. "Carrots," it seemed, could not cook. 
Not even in the slightest could he cook. He 
had practiced a deep deception upon us — and 
he took no shame in it. On the contrary, he 
derived a selfish pleasure therefrom. 

" This trip has saved me a lot of money," he 
declared, gratefully, "and I'm glad I came. I 
was thinking about buying a yacht some day. 
Now I don't want one." 

"We've got to hire a new galley slave," 
Crisp declared. * ' Eddie can't do everything. ' * 

Eddie appeared at that moment, as smiling 
and as cheerful as ever. He was dressed in 
his other overalls and was going ashore to 

236 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

mingle with the youth and beauty of the town. 
Gradually it dawned upon me why everybody 
looked drawn and haggard — these men had 
completely exhausted themselves by their 
efforts at evading toil, and what few hours 
they had snatched for sleep had been troubled 
by the colored boy as he came and went about 
their tasks. 

The state of Sonora is dry, and the evils of 
unrestrained prohibition were forcibly brought 
home to us while we were loading gasoline. 
The Mexican boatman whom we engaged to 
refill our tanks espied a demijohn upon the 
deck and, profiting by our inattention, under- 
took to quench a thirst of several years' 
standing. He seized that jug and quaffed 
deeply, without so much as a Spanish, "Here's 
how!" But his haste betrayed him, for the 
demijohn contained formaldehyde. We used 
everything on that bargeman from white of 
egg to the gasoline pump, but his stomach was 
weak and would retain neither. Whatever 
happens, that Mexican will never be haunted 
by moths, and he should keep indefinitely in 
any climate. As soon as he said he was better, 
we went away from there, fearing that he 
might recover sufficiently to call for the police. 

237 



OH, SHOOT! 

We had in mind a mineral deposit across the 
gulf, so thither we betook ourselves, hanging 
like gorillas to such hooks and bolts and pro- 
jections inside the yacht as had not been 
pulled off on the way down. It was an all- 
night run through a cross sea, but, despite 
our crazy compass, Salisbury hit our desti- 
nation smack in the eye, and we hurriedly 
got out our fishing tackle to commence pros- 
pecting. 

Fishermen thrive upon disappointments. 
A sportsman will travel thousands of miles to 
reach ideal fishing or hunting grounds; then 
the better the sport the fewer his thrills, and 
the sooner he tires of it. Some of my best 
trips have resulted in the least game, and so 
with this Mexican expedition. Not that we 
didn't catch fish — we caught too many. That 
was our trouble; we soon found there was no 
dramatic suspense to the procedure. Wher- 
ever there was a rocky shore, there the best 
fish families of the neighborhood were lined up, 
waiting for us. A rusty spoon was as tasty to 
their palates as a brand-new nickel-plated 
striker or a hand-painted minnow designed to 
melt in the gills. 

It was March; the water was cold; hence 
238 







'k 



\,- ■ -imp. 






V; )j '♦^' ■•■■ 













MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

not all of the usual varieties were present, and 
we caught mainly cabrilla — a sort of rock cod 
that attains any size which happens to suit it. 
The gulf is, in truth, a gigantic fish trap, so 
placed as to pocket every kind of marine life 
that works up the coast, and, outside of sal- 
mon streams, I have never seen waters with 
more fish in them or a region better suited 
for fishing on a commercial scale. Practically 
all varieties are edible, and the supply is inex- 
haustible, but nothing is being done to exploit 
it, and any ambitious effort to do so, under 
present conditions, would almost certainly re- 
sult in failure. Not even Mexico's citizens 
dare risk any considerable investment of 
money or effort, and of course foreign capital 
is not welcome. 

Nowhere is there a more desolate coast than 
that of Lower California, that narrow seven- 
hundred-mile Mexican tongue of land that 
extends southward from our California border. 
Naked headlands rise sheer from the sea; the 
country behind is a crumpled, waterless wil- 
derness, hard-baked, thirsty, forbidding. But 
there is a lure about it. 

We ran north up the gulf, closely skirting 
the shore, and every foam-girdled reef or 

239 



OH, SHOOT! 

frowning island challenged us, every bay in- 
vited us to tarry awhile and to explore, every 
winding valley was a road to adventure. 
Somewhere back in those arid regions, rumor 
had it, were old roads and crumbling ruins, a 
tribe of big, blond, blue-eyed people, de- 
scended from a shipwrecked crew, the women 
of which stood six feet high. On Angel de la 
Guardia Island were pieces of a high-perched, 
stone-paved highway, such as the Romans 
built, and a mythical city of round rock houses. 
In Guaymas, we had met an American who 
told us confidentially of finding an ancient 
Spanish mission in the dust of which lay a 
gigantic bell of solid silver. He was even 
then on his way out to get an acetylene torch 
with which to cut it into ingots. And there 
were the wild men of Tiburon beckoning 
to us. Oh, the salt was in our nostrils and 
we had never been anything except bucca- 
neers ! 

We pulled into a curving beach where the 
book told us there was a fresh- water lagoon, 
wild game, and sea fowl. While Elmer got 
out his stoutest tackle, praying that it would 
soon be broken, the rest of us went ashore 
with our guns. The lagoon was there, and 

240 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

dusk found us crouching behind improvised 
blinds on its edge. 

First came the plover and the curlew, mew- 
ing mournfully, and we limbered up on them; 
then, as the sun hid behind the peaks, the 
ducks began to bore in. They came like bul- 
lets — widgeon, gadwall, bluebill, sprig — and 
the darker it grew the swifter they came, 
rocketing out of the gloom until we were snap- 
shooting at blurs against a dying sky and 
marking the dead birds by the splash. At 
our backs the sea whispered lazily; now 
and then, through the straining silence, came 
the sound of whales blowing — a vast, hollow, 
whistling echo, like the exhaust of some 
slow-turning engine more mighty than man 
had ever dreamed of. Believe me, it was 
some evening. 

March is stormy on the gulf. The winds 
pour down its seven-hundred-mile length as 
if they had nothing else to do, and a small 
boat needs skillful handling. We were in a 
bad anchorage, and before morning we were 
driven out. Up the coast we hogged, turning 
handsprings around one spouting headland 
after another in search of a hiding place. 
We nosed in finally under the partial shelter 

241 



OH, SHOOT! 

of a bold cape, but inasmvtch as the Par was 
rolling drunkenly in the ground swell, we 
spilled ourselves ashore and went looking for 
antelope. 

I have never bagged an antelope, but I am 
told they can be coaxed within range by the 
waving of a red handkerchief. I do not affect 
red handkerchiefs, but inasmuch as Eddie had 
been too busy to shave the members of our 
party, Carrots had sprung a beard of most 
extraordinary hue; so I took him with me, 
it being my idea, upon locating a band of 
pronghorns, to lie down at ease in the shade 
and have Carrots show his head above 
the brush and comb his vermilion whiskers. 
We had no opportunity of trying this arti- 
fice, but I pass on the idea for what it is 
worth. 

Los Angeles Bay, halfway up the inner 
coast of the peninsula, was a welcome refuge 
from that angry norther, and thither we crept, 
keeping our eyes open, en route, for some oil 
seepages that Salisbury had in mind. We 
found them, and we would have landed in 
better weather, for undoubtedly petroleum 
was bubbling up into the sea. We saw enough 
to stimulate our active curiosity and to make 

242 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

lis think that some day this rc^non will witness 
boring activities, but actual exploration was 
out of the question. 

Overboard went the skiff and the speed 
boat when we finally came to anchor, and we 
landed to arrange a trip into the mountains 
for big-horn sheep. The population of Los 
Angeles Bay consists of two families, and their 
houses nestle close to a spring that supplies 
the only drinking water within many miles. 
Both families are always out of provisions. 
Seiior McDonough is the leading citizen, but 
he doesn't pronounce it that way. He is a 
real Mexican, and he calls himself "Mad- 
done." 

Maddone was away, but the other half of the 
adult male population trooped down to the 
beach, and to him we made known our desires. 
We needed burros to convey us into the local 
Alps, and we were in a hurry to get them. He 
agreed that time was the essence of this under- 
taking, and promised to hasten forthwith, or 
even sooner, to the vague rancho of a vaguer 
friend, where there were beasts of burden by 
the thousand, or, at least, by the hundred. 
To be conservative, there were not less than 
a dozen. Anyhow, he was a man of energy; 

243 



OH, SHOOT! 

delay irked him, and he rested only in vigorous 
action. His sandals were winged; he chafed 
to be gone — but, first, a few hasty details were 
to be arranged. 

For one thing, he must partake of his 
comida — possibly we could speed the moment 
of his departure by lending him some coffee 
and flour and sugar and fish Unes and clothing? 
Any contribution, in fact, from a case of 
Rhine wine to a Norfolk suit would be grate- 
fully acknowledged and receive a good home. 
He was particularly in need of a phonograph 
and some new records. However, that was 
up to us; as for him, he would snatch a small 
bite and then be off at amazing speed. We 
would probably kill more mountain sheep than 
any like number of white men, and we were 
such nice, generous people that undoubtedly 
their horns would be tremendous. He antici- 
pated a wonderful outing, and God had 
sent us at the precise moment when his 
family was out of coffee, lard, frijoles, 
cigars — 

We loaded him down, urged him to grab a 
cold snack and dash away. He promised. 
This was at noon. The slow-sinking sun had 
hidden her face before he divorced himself 

244 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

from the shade of his cabin. It was still too 
hot to travel, he assured us, but, once the cool 
of evening had fully settled, then indeed we 
would be astounded at his pep. The miles 
were as inches to him; perspiration streamed 
from his pores in torrents. Quick action, 
promptitude, reliability — those were his mid- 
dle names. Prepare to receive him at 
dawn. 

Elmer had gone out in the skiff with Eddie, 
but when darkness fell and there was no sign 
of them, we hung out the lights and blew the 
fog horn. It had turned dead calm; the bay 
was like a sheet of metal, and the towering 
mountains that ringed it about dwarfed it to 
the size of a pond. Now, my brother takes 
his fishing seriously; he has played tarpon on 
light tackle until they fainted from lack of 
sleep, or until acute and malignant anaemia 
rendered them nerveless. Nevertheless, I 
knew Eddie to be a grossly material young 
colored boy addicted to growing pains and 
recurrent pangs of hunger, so, as the evening 
wore on and our signals brought no answer, we 
became concerned. This calm could not last 
long; there are heavy tide-rips and hidden 
rocks along this coast, and even a moderate 

245 



'OH, SHOOT! 

breeze in a bay this size would raise a sea too 
heavy for a tiny skiff with a four-inch free- 
board. I remembered capsizing a boat once 
in an effort to land a big fish; these waters 
were deep and cold; the desolation of the 
place was oppressive. 

We finally hooked up a headlight and an 
armful of dry batteries; then Wilson and I 
set out in the launch. This was the first day 
the little speed boat had been in the water ; she 
spat and shuddered at the taste of our Mexican 
gasoline, but finally she began to plane, and 
we skimmed off into the darkness, swinging 
the light in circles. We ran blindly, of 
course, for we had not the slightest idea in 
which direction the skiff had gone. 

After a few miles we shut off and yelled, 
but there was not even an echo. That silence 
simply swallowed our shouts. We repeated 
this performance several times ; then we broke 
down. 

All speed boats break down when most 
needed — the speedier they are the more com- 
plete the collapse. I have owned several, and 
to me their habits are so well known that I 
am never surprised, never resentful. I endure 
their behavior with Christian fortitude, expect 

246 



'%'» 



t\ { >^ 



J^.ii:^n 










iif^il 








MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

the worst, and am seldom disappointed. The 
finest and the most expensive speed boat I 
owned I sold to the government for one dollar, 
to me in hand paid, receipt whereof is hereby 
gratefully acknowledged. Some war-time ne- 
cessity made the transaction possible, but, 
in view of the small amount of money in- 
volved, the government insisted upon re- 
garding that beautiful mahogany-and-brass 
extravagance as a gift. I did not. I preferred 
to look upon it as an outright sale at a satis- 
factory price. Not long ago, I heard the 
disquieting rumor that naval craft presented 
to the government during the war are to be 
returned to the donors. For fear it might be 
true I sold my country place at a loss and 
moved away from where I then lived — I 
moved inland. Until I learn definitely that 
the navy intends to keep that boat I purpose 
changing my address without notice and as 
often as necessary. 

But the middle of Los Angeles Bay in the 
middle of the night is one of the lonesomest 
places I ever broke down in. I cared even 
less for it when I discovered that our only 
tools were a monkey wrench, an oar, two 
pocket knives, and a pipe cleaner. However, 

247 



OH, SHOOT! 

Doc was optimistic; he declared that one 
monkey wrench was as good as two, and we 
had twice as many knives as we could possibly 
use. He said it was nothing but a broken 
shaft coupling, and he could fix it in no time 
if he had the boat in his shop. Anyhow, she 
stepped some — didn't she? — as long as the 
thing held out. 

It was very cold out there and I was wearing 
a hen-skin suit ; a school of whales were play- 
ing near by, and the hollow sound of their tre- 
mendous blowings emphasized the general lack 
of coziness. 

Eventually we got the coupling to hold and 
ran on to the scowling shore opposite. Along 
this we cruised until we had no more than 
enough gasoline for the return trip. Back we 
skimmed, trying to reassure ourselves that 
the missing men would be waiting for us at 
the Par. 

It was nearly midnight when we picked up 
the dull spark of the yacht's light. As we 
swept up to it, we shouted: 

"Have they come in?" 

"Not yet," somebody answered. 

Under the circumstances, we dared not risk 
moving the Par; so there was nothing left for 

248 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

us to do except replenish our supply of gas- 
oline, change into warmer clothes, and spend 
the night in a blind search. Nobody had 
much to say. 

We were ready to set out again when 
somebody cried: 

"Hark!" 

For some time we could hear nothing; 
there was not a breath stirring; the desert 
shore was as mute as the motionless bay. 
Then we fancied we heard what might be the 
thump of oarlocks. We yelled in chorus. 
After a long wait there came back a faint, 
whispered, "Halloa!" and we relieved our- 
selves with the profanities that befit an 
occasion of this sort. 

Elmer and Eddie had run out to the harbor 
entrance — in this timberless country of high 
headlands distances are amazingly foreshort- 
ened — ^and had given the cahrilla a bad half 
hour or so, when, in the midst of the fun, the 
kicker gave a^w despairing coughs, its tongue 
dropped back, and it died in their arms. They 
had selected the wrong mountain for a land- 
mark and had been rowing since mid-after- 
noon. They didn't mind that so much ; what 
made them sore was for us to have moved the 

249 



OH, SHOOT! 

yacht, blown out all her lights, and conversed 
in whispers. Humor was all right in its place, 
but if we thought that was funny, we were 
crazy. Meanwhile, for the love of Heaven, 
wouldn't somebody suggest a bite to eat? 

"Better get some sleep," Salisbury warned 
the rest of us, "for that winged Mexican will 
be back at daylight with his panting burros, 
and it's a long hike up to the sheep country." 

That Mexican bore, the name of Macario, 
which we fatuously believed to be the Spanish 
equivalent of Mercury, but there was a catch 
in it somewhere. Through a long forenoon we 
fried ourselves on a hot deck and waited for 
him. During the cool of the previous evening 
the mountains back of the bay had looked 
invitingly near and not too high, but in the 
pitiless heat of that glaring forenoon they 
retreated and reared themselves skyward to 
such an extent that Salisbury conceived a 
brilliant idea. Why not split the party, leave 
some here to try for sheep, while the others 
ran up the coast seventy-five miles to another 
bay where the chart indicated that the hills 
had been stunted in their early years? Up 
there were both sheep and antelope in abun- 
dance. Salisbury was sure of it. 

250 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

Now, I hate brilliant ideas; I detest people 
who have them. Having been on other trips 
with Ed, I know him for what he is — a wind- 
lass hunter. He wears out an anchor hoisting 
it before it has hit bottom; so, therefore, I 
declared I was cut to measure for the spot I 
was then in, and Wilson took the same stand. 

When we voiced our intention of taking 
Eddie along as interpreter, Ed fought as a 
lioness fights for her cub, but we prevailed. 
We threw some grub together, went ashore, 
and the yacht sailed north. 

Up at Macario's house were two somnolent 
burros, also some native-made aparejos, raw- 
hide rope, and the like. Upon one animal we 
lashed our food and bedding; upon the other 
we loaded a cylindrical steel tank containing 
enough water for several days. 

It sounds easy to tie one hundred and fifty 
pounds of water upon the spine of a docile 
burro, even without the aid of a pack saddle. 
So it is. But to tie it there without even 
driving a nail into the animal or screwing in 
a few clothes hooks, and have it remain tied 
after the burro moves — that is another matter. 
There are probably half a dozen simple, easy 
cowboy "hitches" that will do the trick; 
17 251 



OH, SHOOT! 

they are simple, that is, if one carries a cow- 
boy in one's baggage, but to the inept they 
are as mysterious, as elusive as the Aurora 
Borealis. 

We rubbed practically all the plush off the 
abdomen of that quadruped; we pulled and 
hauled until we wore his tread clear down to 
the fabric. We wrapped him round and round 
with rawhide rope and pieces of string and gal- 
luses and bale wire ; then we cross-hauled and 
cinched him up until he bulged dangerously at 
both ends. But he could teach tricks to Hou- 
dini the Handcuff King. Before he had 
walked a quarter of a mile he had loosened 
our knots and the steel cylinder had slipped 
until he carried it as a kangaroo carries its 
young. By the time we had unlashed and 
reloaded it, we were so thirsty that we had to 
uncork the tank and drink. It became a nice 
problem whether we would get out of sight of 
the spring before our water was exhausted. Fi- 
nally, we invented a hitch of our own, braced 
ourselves, and heaved in on the corset strings 
of that burro until he was a perfect thirty-six. 
We all but vivisected him, but, believe me, we 
anchored that tank. He would have worn it 
to his grave. 

852 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

It was well on toward evening when we met 
Macario and eight dust-coated desert mock- 
ing-birds straggling through the cactus. With 
them was a lean six-foot Maduro brigand, 
wearing the mustache of a walrus and the 
name of Angel. At sight of our pack animals, 
his and Macario's eyes protruded like those 
of our unhappy water carrier; with exclama- 
tions of wonderment and admiration they 
unwrapped the animal as if he were a broken 
leg and gently massaged his vital organs back 
into place. Then they showed us how they 
could secure a steel tank in place with a couple 
of simple turns. 

They had brought with them a collection of 
antique saddles, or the skeletons thereof, and, 
selecting the stoutest animal in the group, 
they indicated that I was to climb into the 
middle of him. For a six-foot man to get on 
a burro is about as perilous as moimting a 
sawbuck; it strains nothing but the rider's 
self-respect. I like burros; I had vowed that 
I would rather walk across the peninsula than 
inflict my avoirdupois upon a brute too small 
to carry a tune, but after ten miles afoot in 
that desert I would have sat on a ground- 
squirrel. However, my relief was short-lived. 

253 



OH, SHOOT! 

My steed creaked in every joint; he sighed 
mournfully; then he lay down, leaving me 
standing astride of him like the Colossus of 
Rhodes. I coaxed him to rise, mounted again ; 
and again he abased himself in an attitude of 
prayer. We repeated this performance several 
times, but the oftener he rehearsed the more 
perfect he became ; so I shifted to a lop-eared 
old goat as dusty as a Pullman seat. The 
joints of this burro were too stiff to bend, and 
so, eventually, we went away from there, 
riding with our knees under our chins so that 
our feet would not drag. 

Evening brought a sunset such as I have 
never seen. Masses of storm clouds had piled 
over the ragged Cordillera, and the dying sun 
beyond ignited them. The fire spread until the 
heavens were gloriously ablaze. The heat of 
the day had diminished, and twilight softened, 
beautified the harsh, hateful outlines of the 
desert; the place became peopled with shapes 
and shadows; it throbbed with mystery and 
suggestion. The storm came eventually — a 
cataclysmic war on high, resulting in a Mex- 
ican cloudburst. Six drops of rain fell; then 
the moon broke through. 

Steadily, silently we rode; we were tired, 
254 



w n 

o o 

> 2; 

2: O 

r o 

S w 

PI HH 

o 5 

50 W 



2° 





THE DEER LOOKED SMALL FROM THE TOP OF THE HILL, BUT AFTER 
HE WAS DRESSED HE WAS THE SIZE OF A HORSE 




I WAS READY FOR A BATH WHEN I REACHED THE SHORE 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

hungry. The occasional flare of a match be- 
neath wide straw sombreros illumined the 
lean, swarthy faces of our guides. Up a long 
hogback we went, alongside a deep gorge, 
then into a black cafion, the perpendicular 
walls of which crowded so close that we could 
touch them on either side. Out of this and 
into another valley. It was a relief to slip off 
of those desert Fords and plod through the 
ankle-deep sand. Macario had armed himself 
with a stick, and with it he beat clouds of 
choking dust from the laggard animals; but 
they appeared to enjoy it. Whenever one 
found a dead bush, particularly dry and 
brittle, he ate it with meditative relish, the 
while Macario yelled hoarse profanities and 
dislocated his shoulders by flailing the nearest 
portion of the burro's anatomy. 

The vegetation had changed here. The 
desert was forested with twisted growths, 
doubly distorted by the moon. Leafless trunks 
towered on every hand like the stubs left in 
the track of a forest fire. 

About midnight we drew up to the foot of 
a barren ridge and crept into a tiny cavern, 
perhaps three feet high at the entrance and 
five feet deep. Amid sighs and groans, we 

255 



OH, SHOOT! 

fitted the mellow portions of our bodies over 
the protuberances in the rocky floor and 
turned our backs to the cold wind. We were 
dry and dusty; our skins cracked; we grated 
when we rubbed; there was sand in our gar- 
ments and grit in our teeth, but Angel had 
seen a flock of sheep crossing the valley at this 
place not a week before, and we were content. 

"That gang on the boat will be sore when 
we come back all worn out with sheep," Wilson 
chattered. 

"Sure! When you go for game, you have 
to work for it," I agreed. 

I snuggled closer to Wilson, and thereby 
crowded him farther out into the arctic night 
wind. Our cave was moulting. At our every 
move, the low roof showered us with dirt; but 
we spat it out and agreed that sheep hunting 
in this country was almost too enjoyable to 
be interesting. 

There was a meeting of the Coyote Choral 
Club about daylight ; so we got up, not greatly 
fatigued by our night's rest, and were away at 
smiup. Although we saw no sheep, it turned 
out to be a most interesting day, for our sur- 
roundings were unreal, and climate, geology, 
vegetation were such as to shatter our precon- 

256 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

ceived notions of deserts. To begin with, this 
waterless region rustled with bird and animal 
life — quail, doves, rabbits, coyotes. Deer were 
plentiful, and there were antelope, too. The 
soil was a wavering network of various sorts 
of tracks. The born hunter derives more en- 
joyment from a new country, from the obser- 
vation and study of animal habits, than from 
the chase itself. If he be a naturalist at heart, 
thirst, fatigue, blistered feet become pleasures. 
Most amazing of all was the vegetation. 
Our way led us through a veritable jungle, 
sprung from a soil as dry as gunpowder. 
Every plant, every bush, every trunk bristled 
with thorns and spikes and hooks and dag- 
gers — why, I don't know, for nobody could 
possibly want to do them violence. There 
were high trees shaped like huge, elongated 
pineapples, which bore foolish finger-length 
branches and leaves smaller than clover; 
others that writhed and twisted spirally or 
had lop ears and elephants* trunks; cacti 
from the size of sea anemones up to giant 
Jewish candlesticks with forty-foot branches; 
trees that sat on top of the ground like gourds, 
or squatted on flat rocks and dropped legs 
down into the sand; century plants with hot- 

257 



OH, SHOOT! 

house blooms held high on military lances; 
fragrant herbs that Angel told us were food 
and medicine. It was a wonderland of curi- 
osities and contradictions. For instance, I 
cut a branch for a staff, but it ran blood all 
over my hands. I cut another, and it exuded 
milk. The third gave forth honey instead of 
sap. 

With sweat pouring from us, now that the 
sun was back on the job, we toiled up a four- 
thousand-foot spur of the main range. Near 
the top we ran upon a sloping meadow, a 
lush and lovely beauty spot, carpeted with 
strange red and blue and yellow flowers, the 
perfume of which was heavenly. 

Sheep "signs" were plentiful all up and 
down the ridge; we hung our feet over the 
edge of the cliffs and let the view soak in, then 
combed the country with our glasses. 

Near by, we came upon a city of cave 
dwellings in very good repair. The whole 
face of a long bluff was perforated with en- 
trances, lending it a Swiss-cheese effect, and 
opening from the main chambers, in some in- 
stances, were smaller compartments which had 
doubtless served the original homesteaders as 
china cabinets, coat closets, and butlers' pan- 

258 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

tries. Nature had fashioned the caves, but 
the Hving-room ceiHngs had been done over; 
they were crudely smoothed off as if by bone 
instruments — perhaps the heads of the short- 
waisted inhabitants. So I deemed likely 
when I stood up in one. 

Not all the isthmus of Lower California is a 
desert such as we were in. Far from it. 
Much of the land on the Pacific side, and 
especially that in the northerly section, is like 
that of our southern California, and with de- 
velopment would rival in richness the vaunted 
habitat of the Native Son. Its isolation from 
the mother country — the long, narrow gulf 
completely separating the two — has resulted 
in a peculiar state of political affairs; it is to 
all intents and purposes independent. Cantu, 
the present governor, is a forceful, energetic 
person. He is popular, and he maintains a 
considerable army upon steady pay. He and 
his party, if there is such a thing, make their 
own laws, levy and collect their own taxes, 
and thumb their noses at the Carranza govern- 
ment, daring them to do something about it. 
Since Mexico lacks a navy, and it is a long, 
dry walk around the head of the gulf, the bluff 
holds. 

259 



OH, SHOOT! 

Governor Cantu is generally liked by Amer- 
icans, and is credited with progressive ideas 
for the development of his state. He main- 
tains internal order, and considerable Ameri- 
can capital is invested near the border. 

One American, however, told me an experi- 
ence which, if true, reflects no credit upon the 
present state government. During the war, 
he learned there were vast herds of wild burros 
in Lower California, and obtained a conces- 
sion to build and operate a slaughterhouse and 
reduction works for the purpose of meeting 
the shortage of oils and fats. The hides were 
to be saved and the carcasses reduced to 
fertilizer. As a tax, he agreed to pay fifty 
cents for every animal killed. After he had 
built his plant and operated it a short time, 
the tax was arbitrarily raised to three dollars 
and fifty cents per head, and he had to shut 
down. 

There is also a story of a Russian colony 
which took up land and planted wheat with 
the understanding that the government — I 
was told this meant the governor himself — 
would build a mill to grind the grain. This 
was done, but at a price of a dollar a bushel, 
which broke the community flat. 

260 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

Such methods, whether true of Lower CaH- 
fornia or not, are certainly not uncommon in 
other Mexican states and largely explain the 
stagnation of business at this writing. It is the 
more regrettable because, prior to the Madero 
experiment in political science and the subse- 
quent chaos, foreign capital was as safe in 
Mexico as were foreign lives. The lot of the 
peons was unhappy, pitiful; nevertheless, the 
country was developing, advancing, and that 
very outside capital which is now discouraged 
was doing much to improve the condition of 
the poor. 

While on this subject, it is interesting and 
instructive to note the circle through which 
the Mexican experiments have revolved. As 
everyone knows, much of Mexico's lands were 
held in large parcels by the wealthy class. 
When the revolution triumphed, the reformers 
said: 

"Enough of the old system. It is unjust, 
malicious. We will expropriate these lands 
and sell or give them away in small pieces." 
So they went at it. 

But did the land-hungry small investor 
buy? He did not. He said, very reasonably, 
too: 

261 



OH, SHOOT! 

"Why should I pay my good money? 
You took this land, without due process of 
law, from its original owners, who held it 
under sacred government guaranty. What is 
to prevent you from some day taking it away 
from me?" 

In view of this absurd attitude of mind, ar- 
guments, further guaranties, availed nothing; 
so it was decided that the state should work 
the lands, for revenues had to be raised 
somehow. 

Here comes the lesson in socialism — a, 
lesson that our own restless element would do 
well to ponder over, for it applies to one coun- 
try, one people, as well as to another. When 
Mexico tried to work her own lands, she failed, 
as she was bound to do. Either she could not 
get the labor or such labor as she did get was 
lazy, inefficient, or dishonest. Anyhow, the 
scheme blew up and left the government more 
than ever perplexed as to means of meeting 
the "overhead." That need remained; it 
grew steadily. 

There was but one other course to follow, 
viz., increase taxes. That Mexico did. She 
boosted them with a vengeance. But the 
idealist has a hard row to hoe; the obvious 

262 





TYPES OF SERI INDIANS 




THE SERIS PADDLED ASHORE TO PREPARE FOR US 




THE LIVING QUARTERS OF THE SERIS WERE NOTHING BUT WINDBREAKS, 

SMALL BRUSH CORRALS, AND THERE WAS NOTHING IN THE VILLAGE THAT 

LOOKED LIKE A ROOF 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

and the practical forever obtrude themselves 
and spoil the reformer's work just when he 
rolls up his sleeves, spits on his hands, and is 
about to show what he can do. In this in- 
stance, the property owners sat back in their 
traces and refused to pull the load. 

"Take our land," said they. "We can't 
exist under such a burden." 

But land was the last thing the government 
wanted. It began to compromise and, under 
threat of walking out, the property owners 
paid what they thought was right or could 
afford. This, of course, opened the way to 
unlimited graft, and was seized upon. 

Having failed in these radical experiments, 
Mexico is now talking about restoring the 
seized lands to the original owners and rein- 
stating them upon a productive basis, so that 
business and the flow of revenue will be re- 
sumed. When she does that, the circle will 
have been completed. 

Doc and I hunted hard for those desert 
sheep, and I've no doubt we would have 
landed some had it not been for the fact that 
Carrots had tucked into our grub sack several 
cans of assorted fish. That tinned sea food 
spoiled the party. We were on short water 

263 



OH, SHOOT! 

rations, anyhow; whenever one of us glued 
his parched lips to a canteen, the others looked 
on like starving Armenians and prayed that 
he would break his arm — but when necessity 
forced us to partake of that salt-water product, 
our smoldering insides burst into flame. Mere 
ordinary, perishing thirst became a delightful 
memory; we quit looking for game and went 
hunting green maguey plants and the juicier 
varieties of cactus, such as the deer quench 
their thirst with. 

Some of those cacti bore crops of what 
resembled huge luscious watermelons, others 
had canteloupes sitting on their tops, and of 
course that made it nice. 

We breathed dust ; we slept in the sand like 
lizards; we scrubbed our dishes in it until the 
grub pile disappeared; then we saddled up 
and hiked back for the coast. Even the 
animals speeded up. 

It is not an tmmitigated delight to ride a 
burro when it is in a hurry. Without warning, 
it bursts into a trot for a few mincing strides, 
then it slips into reverse, stops as if petrified 
and you kiss it between the ears. 

We arrived at the bay late at night in the 
midst of a roaring sand storm, and made out 

264 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

the yacht veering drunkenly about at her 
anchorage as the gale boiled over the moun- 
tains and blew her this way and that. Car- 
rots put off in the skiff to pick us up, but a 
gust caught him and spun him out into the 
gloom. We rid our mouths of burro hair and 
dust, and answered his mournful cries for 
help. It did not seem right, after all we had 
endtired, that we should be deprived of Car- 
rots and denied our vengeance for those cans 
of briny fish. When the wind shifted and 
whirled him into sight, we waded out to meet 
him, but before we could entwine our hungry 
fingers in his vermilion beard another squall 
bore him gyrating out into the bay. This 
time he broke an oar. It was too dark to 
see to shoot him, so we sat down and wept. 
We were strong men, but thought of this 
meeting had been like wine to us; we had 
reached the breaking point. 

When he finally managed to scull in to the 
beach his arms were paralyzed; he could not 
even raise his hands in supplication, and — well, 
we lacked the heart to do away with him. 

If in my story I appear to digress at times, 
if I deal idly in passing with things Mexican 
from big game to botany, from politics to 

265 



OH, SHOOT! 

canned fish, it is because the trip itself was a 
digression, an experiment in appHed idleness, 
and one incident, one place, was about as 
diverting to us as another. 

Before recrossing the gulf, a word more 
regarding that queer, little-known peninsula 
of Lower California which we were leaving. 
It is one of the last frontiers. It is a region 
at once amazingly fertile and as sterile as the 
moon, a land both rich in resource and readily 
accessible, and yet almost unpeopled and un- 
touched. Mexico will not consent to sell it 
to us — talk along that line offends every in- 
stinct of the Mexican. Strategically, it would 
be a tremendous asset to the United States, 
and it would probably yield many products of 
great value, but further discussion of a pur- 
chase can serve only to inflame and antagonize 
— and international antagonisms we can very 
well do without for a while. 

Angel de la Guardia Island lay just abreast 
of our anchorage, a vast, mountainous mass, 
as bare and infertile as the head of a sledge 
hammer, but we lacked time in which to ex- 
plore it for that old paved road and the city of 
stone houses. Instead, we took advantage of 
the first decent day to run back across the gulf. 

266 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

The gulf, at this point, is narrow and has 
been left in a wretched state of disrepair. It 
is all cluttered up with reefs and islets; vast 
piles of loose building material lie around, half 
or wholly submerged, and affording a menace 
to traffic. Worst of all, there is not even a red 
lantern out at night to warn a yacht of some 
detour. 

We did not tell our pilot whither we were 
bound, else he would have gone to board with 
Maddone, for Tiburon is not a popular point 
of call, and local boatmen avoid it like the 
"flu." 

When he finally discovered that we were 
headed for the stamping grounds of the no- 
torious Seris, he surrendered the wheel and 
disclaimed further responsibility for anything 
except his own safety. That he proposed to 
safeguard. He complained that Tiburon was 
his idea of no place to be after dark, and as- 
sured us that even the rent collector passed 
it up and the cops ignored it. In comparison 
with its inhabitants, the Yaquis were lovable, 
orderly people, and the electric chair was too 
good for any Seri. If we chose to go ashore 
there, we would part as friends, and there 
would be no hard feelings, but he would appre- 

18 267 



OH, SHOOT! 

ciate it if we wotild show him how to start the 
engine, as it was a long row home. 

SaHsbury had long since "sold" us this Seri 
proposition with his tales of their uncouth 
habits; it required no such boosting as this 
to ftirther prejudice us in their favor. We had 
no particular fear of them, especially Crisp and 
I, for to anybody engaged in the motion-pic- 
ture business, lack of refinement is nothing 
unusual. As a matter of fact, we had decided, 
if in truth these savages were cannibals, to 
purchase, hire, rent, lease, or steal a brace of 
the hungriest, blood thirstiest man-eaters and 
take them back to Los Angeles with us. 
Crisp wanted his for an assistant director, and 
I proposed to feed mine on scenario writers. 
The eating of human flesh, the gnawing of 
human bones, is a reprehensible habit, no 
doubt, and should not be generally encour- 
aged, but if it must be practiced, where better 
than in and around a studio? 

But from our first examination of Tiburon 
Island, we began to doubt that these Seris 
were what they had been painted. The soil 
was poor, too poor to raise any kind of garden 
truck, and we reasoned that if, indeed, they 
were cannibals, it was purely because they 

268 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

were forced to subsist upon canned goods 
for want of fresh vegetables. Salisbury was 
positive, however — he knew them. He told 
about an expedition of newspaper men that 
had landed here years before and had disap- 
peared, leaving nothing but well-picked femurs 
and tibias to indicate the manner of their 
taking-off. The pilot recounted the tale of 
some storm-boimd fishermen who had met a 
similar fate but a short time before this. 
Crisp and I, therefore, did not despair. 

But there were no Seris where we first went 
ashore. Doubtless the scarcity of visitors 
had forced them to move about in search of 
other fresh meat. 

Before leaving home we had promised oiu" 
wives that we would call upon these wild 
people, and, in order that we might prove that 
we had carried out our intention and had not 
spent our outing lolling in white flannels be- 
neath the palms of some senorita-iniested wa- 
tering place, we made up Eddie and posed him 
beside the bleached carcass of a whale. It 
was a good idea, and a good background, and 
Eddie would have made a fairly convincing 
aborigine had he not insisted upon wearing 
his red-flannel undergarments. The resulting 

269 



OH, SHOOT! 

photograph might have got by at that, had 
we needed it, but, fortunately, we did not. 

This was the spot where SaHsbury had 
killed his seven deer with one round from his 
six-shooter; so we went htinting, despite the 
protests of our pilot. In fervent Spanish, he 
assured us that the place reeked of redskins, 
that hidden, hostile eyes were no doubt fixed 
upon us at that very moment, that unseen 
lips were smacking in moist anticipation of the 
fancy cuts and crown roasts into which we 
would subdivide. Oiu* knowledge of the lan- 
guage was imperfect, but, with a fervor equal 
to his, we responded: 

*' Muy guanol'' which we took to be the 
Spanish equivalent of ''very good." 

Tiburon is a sure cure for buck fever. 
Never have I seen a deer country like it, except 
perhaps the plateau north of the Grand Cafion. 
The island where we landed was broken into 
many low hills separated by dry watercourses, 
with just sufficient brush in the arroyos to 
afford cover. The slopes were open, and they 
were crisscrossed by a very network of game 
trails worn deep into the flinty soil. Those 
trails led everywhere. It seemed impossible 
to walk a half mile without starting some- 

270 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

thing, but it was not. Either the game lay 
close or at this season it was farther inland, 
but even so it was not long before the enter- 
tainment began. 

Elmer and I topped a steep ridge, and as we 
stepped to the edge of the bluff a sudden 
movement below halted us. Out from the 
right and considerably below us burst a buck 
that looked as if he had a rocking-chair on his 
head. He was perhaps two hundred and fifty 
yards distant, and he made a spectacle. 
Nature's knack for protective coloring is well 
illustrated in these burro-deer; in repose, they 
blend perfectly into the background. It is 
only while in motion that the eye readily picks 
them up, and this deer was certainly in motion. 
No deer of my acquaintance ever displayed 
more motion in the same length of time. He 
was headed across stage, but it was clear 
shooting, and I completely ruined his whole 
evening. I shot four times, and was rather 
surprised to find, when we got down to him, 
that I had hit him four times, twice within a 
hand's breadth of the heart. It was lucky 
shooting, downhill at that distance and at his 
rate of speed. 

He had looked small from the top of the 
271 



OH, SHOOT! 

hill, but after he was dressed, ready to pack 
out, he was the size of a horse. 

Far be it from me to dispute Salisbury's 
statement that some Tiburon deer will "dress" 
four hundred pounds. The head of this one, 
now that it is mounted, is so heavy I can't get 
a spike strong enough to hang it on my wall. 

After working another section, where we 
killed a couple more, we set out to find the 
Seri village. 

These Seris were once a powerful tribe. 
Mexican history refers to battles between 
them and the Yaquis in which as many as ten 
thousand warriors on each side participated. 
But the Seris were defeated; they dwindled 
and decayed, and were finally pushed off the 
mainland to this island of ill repute, where the 
remnants of the tribe now live. In view of 
their diminishing numbers, we expected to 
find a village of physical wrecks, a handful of 
decrepits. But we were mistaken. 

We skirted the island until, with the glasses, 
we made out a weather-beaten boat drawn up 
on the shore. Running closer in, we studied 
the place, but could detect no indication of a 
village or any sign of life. Salisbury, however, 
was positive, 

373 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

"They're probably hiding out," said he. 

Our pilot agreed. He hazarded the opinion 
that the merry villagers were doubtless out 
in the brush, hastily splitting kindling and 
filing their teeth in preparation for our landing. 

Not until we came to anchor did we see a 
movement; then a solitary figure appeared. 
Soon another and another joined it, until there 
were half a dozen. Eventually they entered 
their boat and paddled out toward us. They 
were shy, distrustful at first, but when they 
recognized Salisbury they cackled like guinea 
fowl and closed in. 

One's first impression of these people is 
that they carry picturesqueness to the point 
of vice ; not even in Greenwich Village can one 
find such extremes of eccentricity in dress and 
deportment. But as for being decrepit — 
Dempsey and Babe Ruth and Zbyszko are 
similar wrecks. They are so big they run six 
to the dozen; they have teeth like quartz 
mills, and enough hair to stuff a mattress. 

They had brought along a woman and a 
baby, for fear, I suppose, that we might not 
treat them gently, but we felt no desire to 
play rough with those boys. They had on 
their sport clothes— all that was iportal of 

273 



OH, SHOOT! 

some garments Salisbury declared he had 
given them several years before — and were 
ready to indulge in any game we suggested, 
from pillow fighting to mayhem. 

Ed beamed amiably upon them; he gesticu- 
lated hysterically and spilled disreputable 
Spanish, and they came back at him in kind. 
He was their friend, he said; he was glad to 
see them and to be once more in the bosom of 
the tribe. He had been long away, but his 
heart had hungered for Tiburon, and he had 
seen no people in any part of the world for 
whom he could cherish the same love and 
affection. Emotion choked him; he pressed 
the chief's hand and smiled moistly into his 
eyes; he admired the baby and threatened to 
kiss the mother. Joy so heartfelt as his was 
touching ; his voice wavered, broke. He turned 
to us, saying: 

"Don't let the damn thieves aboard or 
they'll cut our throats." 

He had brought them gifts — oh, riches un- 
imaginable! — the gleanings of his industrious 
voyages to far countries — not pungent spices 
and precious oils from the Indies, perhaps, but 
something better. Look ! A half dozen stand- 
ing collars, size seventeen and a half, and not 

274 




ALL SMILES, WAITING TO BE PHOTOGRAPHED 




THESE SERIS EVIDENTLY WANTED TO BE REMEMBERED BY US 




IT WAS QUEER TO FIND, SO NEAR TO OUR OWN BORDER, A PEOPLE SO LOW 
DOWN THE SCALE OF PROGRESS 




A GROUP OF SERI INDIAN CHILDREN 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

badly soiled except along the edges; a straw- 
hat with half a brim, and neckties of purest 
silk with bouillon polka dots. The chief an- 
nexed these offerings and grinned so pleasantly 
that our Mexican pilot shuddered and backed 
into the whistle cord. 

We showered presents upon our visitors, 
and practically everything we gave them they 
either ate or put on. When we signified that 
we were going ashore for a more intimate pow- 
wow, they shouted vociferously and stirred 
the water to foam in their eagerness to go and 
prepare for us. 

Prompted by affection and respect, our na- 
tive navigator made one last appeal. These 
were bad people, he declared. They wotdd 
probably make drum heads of our hides, and 
how would we like to be served up with dump- 
lings and have our jewelry worn by people like 
these? As individuals we meant nothing to 
him, but his friends in Guaymas would be 
bound to talk if he returned alone. 

There were perhaps twenty Seris in sight 
when we put off in the skiff, and they came 
leaping across the rocky beach to welcome us. 
They dashed into the water, seized the boat 
and ran it ashore, then examined us with much 

27s 



OH, SHOOT! 

interest. Meanwhile, over the brush- tops in 
all directions black heads with hair like horse 
tails were lifted; more tattered figures ap- 
peared and surrounded us. 

Not all of them were as friendly as the first 
few. Some were merely sullen; others were 
almost openly hostile. I undertook to photo- 
graph one pair, but they pulled a couple of 
knives as long as a ship, so I canceled that 
sitting. More than once some coarse-fibered 
villager got insulting, despite the fact that 
there were ladies present. But we were armed 
and watchful, and on the whole they treated 
us as well as I would feel inclined to treat them 
if they descended upon my house in a body. 
Salisbury had assured us that they possessed 
no firearms; nevertheless, in exploring their 
living quarters we discovered that they were 
quite as well armed as we. 

Those living quarters were nothing but 
windbreaks, small brush corrals, and there 
was nothing in the village that looked like a 
roof. As for food, the tribe lives altogether 
on shore dinners, with some occasional veni- 
son. It is probable that they cook some of 
their food, though not all, and meal time 
among them would not be pleasant for a, 

276 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

civilized person. But as for being cannibals 
— the word is, of course, only a figure of 
speech. They are thoroughly lawless, and the 
stories of their evil deeds are probably true; 
doubtless they are as dishonest as some of our 
own citizens, but, all in all, they do not 
greatly differ from some of the foreigners in 
the crowded quarters of our great cities, and 
they smell very much the same. 

It was queer to find, so near to our own 
border, a people so low down the scale of 
progress. They do not even appear to pos- 
sess any of the customary Indian skill at handi- 
work. There were no baskets, no pottery, no 
cloth, no evidence of any sort of industry. 
Nevertheless, they were healthy, strapping, 
energetic individuals, and illustrated the agree- 
able theory that work is a luxury pure and 
simple. Doubtless the blood will run out 
before long, for there are but two villages left, 
and they number not more than two hundred 
souls. 

In such a community as this it does not 
take long to see the sights. When they had 
taken all the gifts we offered and we had taken 
all the pictures we cared for, the afternoon 
began to drag. We did manage to get a little 

277 



OH, SHOOT! 

thrill after all of our party save Wilson, Crisp, 
and I had returned to the Par. While we 
three were waiting for the skiff to come back 
we noticed two or three of the more disorderly- 
young bloods arming themselves. Covertly 
we watched them removing their hidden rifles 
and loading them; then, when they started 
toward the brush back of the village, we called 
the chief's attention and told him by gesture 
and by facial contortions that this was no 
nice way to speed the departing guests. We 
were willing to speed, but whither? Our 
protests precipitated a scene. The chief man- 
aged to disarm one brave, but the others 
evaded him and made their get-away. When 
we discovered that the women and children 
were likewise disappearing, leaving us alone 
on the open beach, it seemed to us that we 
bulked as big and as conspicuous as three dead 
mules on a hot road, and we could not under- 
stand why the skiff was so slow in returning. 

Salisbiury, we discovered later, had been 
watching the scene through the glasses and 
had sounded a call to arms; but we were a 
quarter of a mile away and our attention 
was distracted. 

Probably the whole thing was just an 
278 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

aborigine's idea of a practical joke, but, be 
that as it may, I have no desire to again visit 
the Sens. I have had so much practice that 
I can tell nearly every time when I'm not 
wanted. A nice time was had by all, to be 
sure; but in view of the chill with which our 
actual departure was enveloped, I have lost 
interest in the spiritual progress or material 
good of those Indians. I hope Salisbury's 
collars chafe them. 

Salisbury's sheep country lay to the north 
of Tiburon, but we had cruised seven hundred 
miles since leaving Guaymas and our gasoline 
was short. Another norther was blowing, 
too, and, inasmuch as some of our party had 
to get home, we reluctantly headed back. 

As I write this there are items in the daily 
press about Mexico — a revival of resentment 
at fresh outrages in the Tampico and other 
districts, renewed mutterings about interven- 
tion. I cannot believe, in view of our past 
policy, that the United States will intervene — • 
not, at least, with armed troops. I may be 
wrong — frequently I am. Even before this 
sees print, something may happen to draw 
our military forces across the border. But it 
is unlikely. It is doubtful, moreover, if that 

279 



OH, SHOOT! 

is the best way to pacify Mexico. Bullets 
would do it, but dollars would do it equally 
well, perhaps better. Mexico needs money. 
She is financially discredited; her obligations 
are unpaid; her industries are starving; she 
is bled white. She needs new blood, new life. 
I believe a half dozen of our strong bankers 
could restore law and order below the Rio 
Grande more quickly and more lastingly than 
an equal number of veteran overseas divisions. 
Given money to work with and given honest, 
wise men to handle the spending of that 
money, she can pacify her own rebellious ele- 
ments, subdue her outlaws and Indians, and 
enjoy a general housecleaning. Whether she 
would tolerate American supervision of that 
sort, whether she would permit outsiders to 
step in and apply honest efficiency methods 
in her departments, is another matter. After 
talking with thoughtful students of the sub- 
ject, I know there are some who believe she 
would — and if matters don't mend she may 
have no choice. The idea is worth thinking 
about. 

When she does find herself, when she be- 
comes once more a safe and agreeable place in 
which to live and to do business, she will 

280 



MESSING AROUND IN MEXICO 

witness a boom like those of our early Western 
days, only magnified a hundredfold. She 
will once more become a land of promise and 
of plenty, for she is blessed with unrivaled 
riches and opportunities ample for her own 
and other peoples. God speed the day, for 
the world is waiting. 



THE END 



